


rocks and riches

by holymotherofkittens



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Meddling, Obliviousness, Pining, Yearning, bc i have a fear of being known but a desire to be loved at the same time, but i made is as gender-neutral and basic as possible so we can ALL self-indulge together, i believe toph has a right to say fuck, im really bad at summaries sorry, like a lot of pining, maybe slight angst if you look hard enough, no beta we descend into madness from inhaling spirits like zhao, thirsting for zuko, this is really self-indulgent tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27940688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holymotherofkittens/pseuds/holymotherofkittens
Summary: “... So how'd they get you in here,” you asked once you were both settled.Zuko hesitated like he was afraid to tell you. “Sokka... told me the closet was haunted. And that I needed to go inside and kill the ghost,” he sighed, defeated. “I guess I didn’t really think it through all the way.”Of course, you snorted and burst out laughing. A reluctant smile crept up his face as he shook his head. “Are you going to be mad if I tell you you kind of deserve this?” you joked.Zuko sighed, content written across his face. “No, I kind of do.”ORzuko is awkward and you are oblivious and a lot of people don't like that
Relationships: Zuko (Avatar) & Reader, Zuko (Avatar)/Reader, Zuko (Avatar)/You
Comments: 52
Kudos: 178





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> was sitting in math class and came to the conclusion that I cannot Take This drought of scarce fanfiction and will now be writing my own. here is the first fanfic to be shat out of my head. enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you are a student at the Beifong Metalbending Academy and while you admire Toph, she lowkey scares you. But that’s ok because her friends are hot and why on earth did she never mention she was friends with the actual goddamn firelord?!

You met Toph Beifong for the first time after having an identity crisis. **  
**

It was hot as balls that day and you were being forced to sit in a circle with the rest of the members of a club your mom had made you join. She was under the impression that you didn’t have enough friends and though, you admit, the number wasn’t big, you were perfectly fine with it remaining that way. Nonetheless, to shut her up, you attended the meeting for Rock Candy Club.

It was honestly going fine until the president (who was unironically dressed as King Bumi of Omashu) suggested that all new members introduce themselves, giving their names, along with three facts about who they were. This was when your heart immediately went into cardiac arrest.

Palms sweating, heart pounding, you were scrambling to think of three facts for you to say since everything you knew about your identity had chosen to vacate your mind at that moment when a sharp pain struck you in the back of the head.

Confused, you’d twisted your body to investigate, only to find a small girl squaring up at your circle. She then proceeded to walk straight towards you, whip out her arm to point uncomfortably close to your face, announce to the whole group, “I’m borrowing her,” and then walk away with more confidence than you had ever witnessed in your entire life.

Of course, you had no clue what had just happened, but you didn’t want to introduce yourself to the Rock Candy Club either, so you got up and followed her.

When you’d both reached a good distance away from the circle, she turned on her heel and stared at you. Or rather at your chin. You didn’t really know what to do–this was probably the weirdest encounter you’d ever had with another human. You looked around awkwardly, trying to think of something to break the silence, and briefly noticed a band of metallic rock wrapped around her bicep. However, before you could muster the courage to ask about it, she beat you to the punch. “What’s your name?”

“(Y/N),” you replied, warily.

“Hm,” her brows furrowed a bit. “Ever heard of metalbending?”

–

You got the shit kicked out of you multiple times during your first week at the Beifong Metalbending Academy, which taught you pretty quickly to pick up your own slack. Whenever you weren’t in class with Toph yelling at all of you to fix your stances, you were practicing, and whenever you weren’t practicing, you were in class trying not to get yelled at. You worked your ass off, driven by the sheer fear of getting it handed to you in front of the entire class, and soon, you noticed that you’d actually surpassed everyone by just the tiniest bit. A minor accident, but not one you couldn’t profit from.

But, due to all your practicing, this meant you had exactly one friend. You were more acquaintances with them, really, but it was at least someone to share judgmental looks with whenever someone did something particularly stupid. 

Several months into your metalbending training, one of these moments occurred.

Riku was one of Toph’s protegees that for some reason or another seemed to find you attractive. Under any other circumstances, you would have been flattered, but Riku was a douchebag and had been bugging you for about as long as you had been at the Academy. Normally, you’d just kept your responses to his flirting attempts short and as un-conversational as possible, trying to show through your lack of engagement with him that you weren’t interested, but since you barely spoke to anyone in the Academy, it just came off as you talking to him like anybody else. Your introverted-ness had really come to bite you in the rear. 

Riku was slowly getting more annoying with every day, until one, when you finally decided you’d had enough. 

Toph had been gone for the day, saying she had business to attend to and for us “lily livers” to keep up with our forms and get some repetitions in. She said she would be back in the afternoon, and said the only rule she would put in place while she was gone was to “not screw anything up.” 

On this day, Riku tried again, and instead of your normal clipped response, you told him “Riku, I’m sorry, but I’m not really interested in you in that way.” You wanted to be polite about it and not make a scene. 

Riku took offense. “What do you mean? You don’t like me?”

“Sorry, not in that way, no.”

He took even more offense to that. He scoffed and said with the utmost confidence, “You sure you don’t want to think about it? You should be lucky I’m even trying to ask you out. You’re not exactly the nicest-looking person here.”

You tilted your head and stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah. Try smiling more. Maybe you’d look prettier.”

You stared at him longer, eyes narrowed, both trying to intimidate him and figure out your next course of action. It didn’t take long before you decided you didn’t care about making a scene anymore.

You stood up, walked over to a bin of metal coins used for practice and melded a handful together, then walked back to Riku and slapped it over his mouth, shaping it into a smile. “Like that?” you said.

The entire room went silent. Riku rapidly breathed through his nose, his voice reduced to muffled groans, trying to comprehend what had happened. He reached his hands up and tried to rip the metal mouth off, but you just clenched your fist and kept it there. After multiple failed attempts to remove it, Riku huffed and glared at you. Before you knew it, a chunk of rock was flying at your chest, and you knew right then and there, that it was your sole duty on behalf of all the women at the Academy to beat him the fuck up.

Narrowly dodging the earth, you slid your foot back and bent the chest of coins to you, where you stuck your hands in, bringing them out with a shield of metal wrapped around them in time to land a punch to Riku’s chest.

The air was audibly knocked out of him as he slid across the room. You shirked the metal gloves and moved to bend a spear to wrap around him, but he got to it faster, hastily ripping the metal smile off his face and knocking off the sharp end of the spear, sending it flying towards you.

The rest of the Academy was yelling and cheering for their favored fighter all while trying to dodge wayward rock and metal. You tried to ignore the jeering and took control of the spear, flinging it away and sending it flying through one of the front windows. 

Returning your attention to Riku, you were greeted with a wall of rock hurtling towards you. With not much time to think, you held out your arms and took a stance, breaking clean through the barrier, and without thinking, quickly moved into a secondary pose that sucked Riku’s legs into the floor and out of his own stance, completely caught off guard enough for you to clamp two slabs of rock on either side of him, preventing him from bending any further.

You panted slightly, satisfied as Riku struggled and failed to worm his way out of your trap. Some of your peers cheered, some tried to help Riku, but everyone froze when they heard the growl.

The low growl of a beast that no one had any clue about until one of the more seasoned students, Penga, put it together. “Bison!” she exclaimed. Then, with a little more emphasis when no one understood, ”Sifu Toph!”

Realization dawned on everyone’s faces what that meant and you realized you were all screwed. You released Riku from his imprisonment and hurriedly began repairing the floor. Everyone flew about; accessories were quickly righted and fixed to the best of their ability, as everyone scrambled to cover the evidence of the fight that had just occurred. 

The earth rumbled as the sky bison landed and the Beifong Metalbending Academy rushed out the doors and down the stairs built into the hill to line up for Toph.

You were the last one out the door and the last one in line as one by one, a group of teenagers hopped off the bison, amongst them, Toph. 

Your heart was beating unbearably fast, as was everyone else’s, you suspected, but no amount of panic could’ve ever kept you from noticing him.

With shaggy black hair and an angry scar covering his left eye, he wore the red and black colors of the Fire Nation and a neutral bordering-on-impressed look on his face.

It almost wasn’t fair how good-looking he was, but your time to ogle him was cut short as Toph had taken notice of the Academy’s line up.

“What’s going on,” she deadpanned. 

A beat of silence punctuated her statement before someone piped up, “What do you mean?”

“You guys have never lined up to greet me. Ever.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Her friends behind her glanced awkwardly at all of you, trying to assess the situation. “So what’s going on.”

“We missed you!” Someone said with a little too much gusto. You kept your stare pointedly at the ground until a glint in a nearby bush caught your eyes.

The blunted spear from the fight.

You pursed your lips in panic and a string of curse words floated around in your brain on a loop. Chancing a glance at Toph, you saw she was still occupied with the rest of the Academy.

“Yeah, so let me ask again. What. Are you lily-livers. _Hiding_.”

You took a shaky breath and began to move your hand, beginning your attempt to shove the spear further into the bush. Before you could even start to move the spear though, you felt eyes trained on you. 

Fearing the all-knowing, yet blind, stare of your metalbending teacher, you tensed slightly and glanced back at Toph, only to find her still trying to wrestle information out of some of her weaker-willed students.

“Nothing! Everything was great!” 

“… Okay, on top of that comment being suspicious as fuck, all of your hearts are beating faster than an eel hound moves on a good day, so someone better spill, and they better spill fast!”

Your brows furrowed in confusion, having fully expected to find her staring you down. Relaxing a little bit, your eyes trailed over to your preferred spot of dirt, meaning to skim quickly past the Fire Nation boy, only to find his eyes already on you. He looked away as soon as you met his gaze, but if his slow reaction hadn’t already given him up, the slight blush creeping to his cheeks would have done the trick.

As if you weren’t already confused enough, that interaction made your mind do a double-take. You were just about to turn your attention back to the spear when Toph’s brash voice interrupted your focus. “Sparky! Why is your heart beating so fast? We’ve been flying all day!”

The blush on the Fire Nation boy’s face grew as he stammered, caught off guard. “Uhhmm–”

“Hold on! What is _that?_ ” Toph cut him off, apparently not caring about the answer after all, snapping out her arm and summoning the spear right into her hand.

 _Fuck_ , was the only word circulating through your head as she gripped the useless weapon. The entire field was silent. Toph slowly turned to the Academy.

“Penga…” she started.

“(Y/N)andRikugotinafight!” Penga blurted.

“A- _HA!_ I knew you lily-livers were hiding something!” Toph paused. “Wait. _(Y/N)_ and Riku?”

“Yes!” Penga squeaked.

Toph turned her body in your direction and all eyes fell on you.

This was your worst nightmare.

You swallowed and looked anywhere but at the people currently staring you down.

Then Toph asked, “Who won?”

Your head whipped to her, and you blinked. You thought back to Riku sunk in the ground thigh-deep, rock encasing him on either side and glanced at him standing at the other end of the line.

He looked back at you, then at Toph, and opened his mouth to probably say something idiotic like the last time he spoke before someone else beat him to it with a nervous, “(Y/N)!” 

Toph raised an eyebrow. “Really?” A smirk crept onto her face. “Hm. Interesting. Alright, everyone, you’re dismissed! Go finish fixing whatever you screwed up. And fix it good! I want to see some quality bending.”

You let out a breath and began towards the stairs with everyone else until Toph spoke again. “ _Not_ you, (Y/N).”

So close. You took a deep breath and turned back around, reluctantly walking towards the group. 

You reached them and bowed to Toph, trying to cover up any lingering embarrassment. “Yes, Sifu?” you asked. 

She waved a hand dismissively. “I want to introduce you to my friends. This is Twinkle Toes, Sweetness, Snoozles, and Sparky.”

“But you can call us Aang, Katara, Sokka, and…” The boy with the airbender tattoos who called himself Aang gestured amongst them and paused at the Fire Nation boy for a moment. “… Fire…?” his voice wavered.

“–Zuko.” The Fire Nation boy answered quickly. “Zuko’s fine.”

You raised an eyebrow. You were about ninety-nine percent sure that you’d heard the Fire Lord’s name was Zuko somewhere, but you remembered his cute blush earlier and kind of wanted to mess with him a little. “Your name is Fire Zuko?”

His face went red. It seemed to do that a lot. “No. Just Zuko,” he grumbled.

You smiled a little at his painfully clear attempt at brooding and heard snickering come from Toph and most obviously from Sokka.

“I think we’re gonna be gooooood friends!” Sokka drawled, eliciting a small groan from Zuko. “So tell me, (Y/N),” Sokka continued, ignoring his friend’s malcontent, “Ever tried to make a boomerang with metalbending?”

–

Toph’s friends had stayed for a little bit that afternoon for a tour of the Academy while everyone else went back to training. Sokka spent a good chunk of your walk back to the school talking your ear off about possible metalbending techniques–not that you minded. Some of them were actually pretty interesting (and you may or may not have attempted some of them later that night).

You saw glimpses of Zuko every now and then while you trained as Toph led them through various rooms of the building. You never caught him looking at you again, but then again, you were trying your best to keep from getting distracted from training. And Zuko was a very good distraction.

You still hadn’t figured out why Toph introduced you to them, though.

–

The next day was much less eventful, fortunately. Toph seemed to be in a slightly better mood with her friends around, so there was about two percent less yelling directed at the Academy.

You went about your business, and when the lunch break came around, you stepped outside to find a rock to sit on in peace.

The peace didn’t last very long.

You were sprawled out on the rock staring at the clouds with no thoughts, your head absolutely empty, when a twig snapped off to your left just below your rock. Without hesitation, you slammed your hand down on the boulder, shooting a small chunk towards the sound. An outraged “Ow!” told you you’d hit your mark, but it was the voice in particular that had you sitting upright in a heartbeat. 

You stared wide-eyed at Zuko as he held a spot on his head and glared up at you questioningly. “What was that for?” he rasped.

You slapped your hands over your mouth and blurted out, “I’m so sorry!” You moved to face him up on your rock, dangling your legs over an edge. “I didn’t know it was you! I thought you were Riku or something!”

“I didn’t even know you were up there!”

“I said I was sorry!” you defended. 

His response was merely a grumbling of words you couldn’t understand from where you were. You chewed the inside of your cheek and tried to think of a decent way to start the conversation over. “Well,” you began, looking anywhere but directly at him, “I know why _I’m_ out here, but… what are _you_ doing out here? Aren’t all your friends inside?”

Zuko sighed and dropped his hand from his head. “They are. I decided I wanted to take a walk and see the rest of the grounds by myself.”

“That sounds lonely.”

“I’m a lonely person.”

You snorted. Of course, in addition to being ridiculously attractive _and_ probably the Fire Lord, his sense of humor was also perfect.

He smiled slightly as you laughed, then began laughing a little himself. Your heart started to beat just a little faster.

The quiet settled in again, both of you not having any clue where to go from there. Zuko broke the silence. “So,” he brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck, “I hear you, uh, fight… good.” He looked up at you, probably hoping that you wouldn’t call him out on his awkwardness.

You laughed again. “Yeah, I guess.”

He smiled and quirked his eyebrow. “You ever fought a firebender?”

You grinned and answered, “No, I have not.”

“Want to spar, then?”

–

Zuko kicked your ass multiple times. You weren’t kidding when you said you’d never fought a firebender before, and it showed.

He tried not to laugh at you, he really did, but you could tell it was an effort for him not to. Every time you caught him holding back a smile, you were torn between smiling back and punching it off his face, so you compromised and simply leveled him with a glare that promised the pain of a thousand shirshu tongue-lashes.

But, frustrated as he may have made you, the more you practiced with him, the more you picked up on his fighting style and patterns of attack. 

Things really got interesting in your last match. Your back hurt and you were sweating buckets both from the physical exertion and the numerous close-calls you’d had with Zuko’s fire, but you were determined this round.

You closed your eyes, took a deep breath, and focused your chi. After a brief moment, you opened your eyes and slid into a beginning stance. 

Zuko met your stare with equal intensity. You swallowed discreetly and waited patiently for him to make the first attack. 

After a few moments, Zuko swiftly launched into a kick that hurled a stream of flame at you, but this time, instead of attempting to dodge or attack back, you encircled yourself with giant slabs of rock, caging you in, but keeping him out.

Another deep breath later, as Zuko unleashed punch after punch against your barrier, you began tunneling yourself underground. 

You moved through the earth warily. You hadn’t even begun to master seeing with your earthbending the way Toph did, meaning you had absolutely no idea where Zuko was above ground. 

You tunneled about as far as you figured he was standing away from you, assuming he was either still standing there, or had moved closer to get a better attack on your rock tower since you had yet to earthbend any attacks from it. 

You came to a stop. Shifting your feet, you quickly ripped a hole open above you and launched yourself up. 

It had worked. Zuko was more than confused when you erupted up behind him, but not as confused as you thought he would be. You landed closer behind him than you’d wanted to, which threw you off a little bit. 

As he registered where you were, he twisted around, so you moved to sweep his foot out from under him. He anticipated this and moved accordingly, but with the wrong foot, and fell backward as you knocked his balance from him. Zuko, however, managed to catch your wrist in the small moment of triumph your brain experienced, and you both landed on the ground in a sweaty heap.

Both of you lay there, recovering from having the wind knocked out of you before you realized what position you were in.

You met each other’s eyes and you knew he realized it too.

So you immediately went to put him in an arm lock. And he immediately tried to flip you over. 

Things quickly got out of hand, and soon, what was supposed to be a sparring-match-turned-wrestling-match wasn’t even real wrestling anymore. You both slapped each other’s hands away and squirmed for control over the other–you even licked his arm at one point when he tried to wrap it around your neck in a chokehold. You figured you’d already lost most of your dignity in the previous matches, so you had absolutely no shame in trying whatever childish tactics you needed to get the upper hand again. 

Zuko was not amused. “Wha–did you just _lick_ my _arm?!_ _Wh–_ ”

“Uh, guys?”

Zuko and you halted your attacks and snapped your heads in the direction of the voice.

Aang stood to the side with his eyebrows raised and the beginnings of a mischievous smile on his face. His eyes darted between the two of you, like he was waiting for something to happen. It then occurred to you that he was probably waiting for one of you to move away from the other. 

You burst into action and scrambled away from Zuko and to your feet, already feeling your face heat up. Zuko had apparently come to the same conclusion as you, because by the time you were up, he was too, a blush once again painting his cheeks.

Aang still looked between the two of you, his smile inching bigger with each passing second that he stared. His eyes lingered on you before he looked to Zuko and said, “Everyone was planning to go to the market to get stuff for dinner later tonight. So I was sent to find you.” He looked back at you. “Toph is also looking for you since class started up again, but I guess I can tell her she can stop looking.”

“Cool. Thank you.” 

“Market sounds good.”

Neither of you met Aang’s eyes for more than half a second.

Aang’s grin faded into a close-lipped smile that radiated smugness. He nodded once and turned around to walk back the way he came.

Silence ensued, but you broke it, knowing you had to get back to training soon. “Sorry I licked your arm.” You half turned to look at him.

A snort escaped him, which you didn’t expect, but was happy to hear, nonetheless. ”Sorry I tried to put you in a chokehold,” he replied.

“You’re not forgiven.”

He reeled his head back in offense and stood up straighter, but relaxed when he noticed the smile twitching at the corners of your mouth.

He huffed a breath through his nose and started smiling too. “You are the weirdest earthbender I’ve ever met. And I know Toph.”

Your smile turned into a grin as you retorted, “Well you clearly need to know more than just Toph because I can tell you for a fact there are weirder earthbenders out there than me. Plus Toph’s not weird, she’s just buff and fourteen with an insane–but rightly earned–ego boost.”

Zuko snickered with a grin plastered on his face. “I almost hate how accurate that is.”

You decided that his smile was probably your favorite thing on the planet, right alongside baby turtleducks.

His laughter faded, but the smile stayed as he said, “We should probably get back to the Academy.” 

He started walking in the direction Aang went and you easily fell into step with him. Neither of you said anything the entire walk to the Academy, but you knew you had just made a lifelong friend. And that didn’t need any words at that moment.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which zuko is stressed and you are stressed and the fire nation is planning a party.

Despite being dubbed as a lifelong friend in the previous chapter, Zuko was absolute shit at keeping in touch. 

During his time at the Academy, you and Zuko proved to be a dangerous–and inseparable–combo. It turned out that you were an excellent board for bouncing snarky comments off of, and once Zuko got you going, your jokes could be _ruthless_. It’s safe to say that while Toph and the rest of the group liked you just fine, they did not enjoy what happened when you and Zuko were feeling a little petty.

Your sparring matches continued daily without any other incriminating incidents. Zuko never outright said anything, but you could tell that he could tell you were getting better with every fight. You could also tell that he was a little proud of you, but you could never get him to admit it.

Whenever you would practice your metalbending in the evenings and the occasional restless night, you found you often had an audience. Zuko flushed red and came strangely close to resembling a catdeer caught in a Fire Nation tank’s path the first time you caught him watching you, but you didn’t think much of it. You found other bending forms mesmerizing in their own way too, and it was always nice to watch another person’s style of combat. You always heard that bending was an extension of oneself, so to you, bending style was an extension of the soul. More could be told about a person through their actions and effort in something they were passionate about than any amount of staring into someone’s eyes, in your opinion. 

You told Zuko this much after he’d finally brushed off any lingering embarrassment a little bit into your training session. He’d gone to say something in response but ended up just staring at you a little bit. And as if his presence wasn’t already distracting enough, you could’ve sworn he was looking at you through a different lens the rest of the night.

One night turned into two, then onto two added one more, and by the time his two weeks in the Earth Kingdom were up, you were pretty confident you knew everything about him. 

It almost scared you how easy it was to be around him and talk to him. It was never easy for you to talk to _anyone_ about your feelings–and it still wasn’t–but with him, everything came spilling out before you could stop it. You didn’t really know what to think of that.

And you didn’t even want to go back to thinking about how attractive he was, because you were already confused about one layer of your relationship with him, and you did _not_ need to be confused about another.

Luckily, Zuko had to leave before you had to think about those thoughts any further.

Unluckily, Zuko had to leave.

You didn’t want to say you were depressed that he was leaving, because that wasn’t true. But you sure as Agni weren’t happy about it. 

A small part of you that was stupid told you that there was still a one percent chance he wasn’t going all the way back to the Fire Nation. That one percent came from the fact that he’d never told you specifically that he was the Fire Lord, more so because you’d never brought it up, somehow, in the million different things you two had talked about the past two weeks. That stupid part of your brain told you that one percent meant there was still a chance he was going back somewhere a _lot_ closer, like another Fire Nation colony.

Your hopes for that were squashed when he brought up messenger hawks. 

“(Y/N), if you cry I’m going to be really mad at you, because then I’m going to start crying, and I don’t want Sokka to have more ammunition to tease me about on the trip back.”

You rolled your eyes and furiously blinked away any tears that had started to manifest. You also internally rolled your eyes at yourself when your voice came out strained and wobbly. “I’m not crying.” You cleared your throat aggressively. “I’ll miss you, but not that much.”

“You do realize all I’m choosing to acknowledge out of that is ‘I’ll miss you,’ right?” he teased.

“Asshole.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Asshole or not I hope you know I’m going to be sending you a shit ton of messenger hawks. Buy some bird food in advance,” he crossed his arms across his chest.

You tried to ignore the way his forearms looked ten times bigger when he did that. “Messenger hawks?” you repeated.

“Yeah. I’ve only got so many friends as is, you think I’m going to let the new one I made in just two weeks go back to being a stranger so easily?” Then, his confidence seemed to crumble away as a sheepish look took its place. “Unless, you know, you can’t do that. Or don’t want to. That’s fine. I just–”

Guilt stabbed you as he started backtracking. “No, no! That’s not what I meant! I–” _You’re what? You’re waiting for him to tell you he’s the sole ruler of an entire country?_ You sighed and started over. “I’d really like it if we kept in touch. Send as many birds as you want. I’ll figure out how to work them somehow,” you amended, meaning every word.

A smile crept up on his face and he sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders bit by bit. “I can send you instructions in the first letter.”

You huffed a laugh through your nose. “You better. Or else you’re not going to be hearing from me for a looooong time.”

He grinned. “We can’t have that.”

–

A year went by.

You’d mentally gone over everything you wrote to him in your last letter so many times, you pretty much had it memorized:

_Zuko,_

_I am SO sorry. I know you must be frustrated and I totally understand that. But I’m going to have to side with your uncle on that one. Sorry! You know I try to be objective on these things, so I would go talk to him about what to do. Don’t stress too much, everything will always work itself out eventually. Just because there’s a knot in a string, doesn’t mean there’s no way to unravel it._

_Also, I like the name Druk! You never mentioned what kind of animal it was, so I have no clue what I’m trying to name, but I hope it fits at least a little._

_And, yes, I know what you’re probably thinking right now. “What? Where is the amazing pun that I usually get at the beginning of every letter that I love so much?” I know normally I would start off with a bad pun like usual, but I’m too excited! I have to tell you what happened instead._

_Apparently, there’s going to be a gala held in the Fire Nation by the Fire Lord himself! And! Toph was invited to bring some of her metalbending students to showcase to the other nations what she’s accomplished and taught us! There’s going to be some sort of demonstration or something! And! She picked me as one of the students to go!!!!_

_I’ve never been to the Fire Nation, obviously. I’ve never even been outside of the Earth Kingdom! I’m going to eat so much spicy food that the next time you see me I will have evolved into a dragon. I will be able to breathe fire. It doesn’t matter that I’m not a firebender. I’ll do it. You watch._

_Riku was also picked to go, but I’m not too bummed. He sucks still, no improvement since last time I told you he did something shitty, but he definitely knows not to mess with me anymore, so I don’t think I’ll have to worry about him much._

_I don’t think I’m excited just yet. The gala doesn’t happen for another 5 months. I can’t make myself be excited about something so far in advance when I still have so much to do here in the time before then. I’m sure the time will end up going by quick, though. I think._

_I also can’t believe it’s been 7 months since the last time I saw you! I can’t tell if time has gone by faster or slower than usual. I feel like it’s both at the same time. It’s very disorienting._

_On another note, Toph decided a couple of weeks ago that we should have a field trip, so we took a trip to Ba Sing Se. I know I’ve said before that I don’t drink tea that often, but there’s this one shop in the Upper Ring called The Jasmine Dragon. I can’t stress this enough when I say that I could die in that shop and be completely fine with it. The tea was about as addicting as Sokka’s cactus juice sounded when he told me about it. And the owner was so nice! I ended up talking with him for several hours and when I walked out of there I felt like my soul had transcended to another level of intelligence. He had so much to say and yet he barely said anything at all. It was transformative. He did mention his nephew about a thousand times–by the end of my visit I was half-convinced he was trying to set me up with him! But the more I look back on it, I think he just spoke from a place of pure pride. It was really nice._

_Also, don’t tell anyone this, but the other day I forgot how to use a time candle. Just for a minute. I remembered eventually, but it was not my brightest moment._

_Tell me if your issue worked out in your next letter! And what kind of pet you have that I may or may not have just named! And everything that’s going on with you!_

_Best,_

_(Y/N)_

_PS: I ~~don’t~~ miss you_

You couldn’t figure out what you said that made him stop writing. Every day that went by without a messenger hawk was another day closer to the gala. And that thought only made you stress out more.

You’d figured out that he was definitely the Fire Lord. It was obvious. And you’d confirmed it. So you were definitely going to see him at the gala. You had to. There was no getting around it. It was _his_ gala.

The thought of seeing him again used to excite you. But ever since he went bird-silent, you were a mess of anxiety and nerves and you actually got nauseous every time you thought about your situation. 

Did he get sick of you? Was he not allowed to write to you anymore? Did they run out of messenger hawks in the Fire Nation? No, that wasn’t possible. Unless they went suddenly extinct and you didn’t know about it yet? Did something happen to him? Was he ok? Did he break his hands or arms at some point and physically _couldn’t_ write back? If that were the case, wouldn’t he, the Fire Lord, have found someone to write a letter to tell you _for_ him? _Was he dead?_

These were the kind of things that you tried not to think about as days went by. You kept training and practicing and even asked Toph to start teaching you seismic sense to keep your mind off of it. But time kept moving. And soon the five months were up and you were on a small Fire Navy boat headed directly toward the source of all your problems.

You were a mess.

–

The boat pulled into the dock way sooner than you wanted.

You spent the entire trip either training or meditating. This was usually normal for you, but on the last travel day, Toph apparently thought it would be best to talk to you about it anyway.

You sat on the deck near the bow of the ship, messing around with a hunk of metal, turning it from one shape to another with your bending. Thanks to your training with Toph, you could sense someone was walking toward you, but only right before they sat down (it was still a work in progress). You glanced to your right and found Toph in her usual Earth Kingdom tunic, leaned back on her hands with her feet stuck straight out in front of her. “Hey,” you greeted.

She cocked an eyebrow. “You know, you may have said that calmly, but your heart rate is all over the place, as it has been for the past five months.”

You swore mentally. Of course she had noticed. “I’m fine,” you assured her.

“I’m sure you are,” she sarcastically agreed, “but I just thought I’d mention to you–as I have with the rest of you lily-livers–that being the Fire Lord is a very hectic job that comes with a lot of time-consuming responsibilities. So he probably won’t be there to greet us at the dock. You guys will most likely meet him later tonight or tomorrow.”

Just based on that answer, you knew she knew what was bothering you, but you appreciated her trying to make you feel better. “Thank you,” you replied, and you hoped she knew you meant it in more than just one way.

She shrugged. “Ehhh, no problem.” Then she waited a beat before punching your arm, standing up and walking away. 

You rubbed the now sore spot on your arm and smiled a bit. You always knew she liked you. 

The horn from your boat sounded, startling you out of your moment of peace. Standing up, you went to look over the rail and swore when you saw the shores of the Fire Nation even closer than you anticipated. Your moment of peace was ruined.

The boat pulled up to the appropriate dock, the ramp lowering and landing with a _thump_. Your heartbeat spiked and you turned away from your perch, shakily wiping the sweat accumulating on your palms onto your pant leg.

You seriously needed to calm down. You _wanted_ to calm down, really, but even breathing exercises could only do so much for your anxiety. 

Toph led the group down the ramp, everyone filing behind her. 

One last deep breath entered and exited your lungs. You shook your head in a last-ditch attempt to clear the surging need to run away to your bunk on the ship as if the action would magically clear any doubts you had been feeling for the last five months. 

You filed in and walked down the ramp.

There were a couple of Fire Nation guards waiting for you on the dock. This didn’t really surprise you, since you’d guessed that special gala guests would be of some importance to the Fire Nation court, but you thought you would have _at least_ a couple of hours to try and collect yourself before you had to face Zuko.

But there he stood, directly between the two guards that had been assigned to meet you, hands tucked behind his back, feet spread shoulder-width apart, dressed in full Fire Lord regalia from head to toe.

And he looked just as nervous as you were.

You knew it was probably the last thing you should’ve been thinking about, but after not seeing him for a year… _fuck_ he looked _good_.

Seriously? What kind of dark spirit gave him the right to look even hotter than he already was in his royal armor? That wasn’t fair at _all_.

However, during the time you spent trying to get over the shock of how good-looking you forgot he was, he had already been introduced to and bowed to the rest of your peers, and had made his way over to you.

He stopped in front of you. A slight wrinkle seemed to be etched into his forehead from the nervous expression that plagued his face. The Fire Lord bowed in greeting and you returned the gesture.

The two of you rose and locked eyes. You waited for him to say something, but he just stared at you with his good eye widened slightly, probably waiting for you to say something first.

You didn’t know how exactly it happened, but not only had the shock of seeing him after a year somehow quieted your anxiety for the moment, it had also made your mind completely void of any words to say to him. So you met his stare and said the first words that came to you. 

“I like your hair.”

A beat passed. Zuko blinked. “Oh. Uh, thanks.”

“I mean it looks good down too!” You didn’t know why you were still talking. “I just mean, you know, the hair thingy… is cool.” Your eyes flicked up to his royal hairpiece and back to his gaze.

Zuko blinked again. His brow had shifted to furrow over his eyes as he stared at you like two heads had suddenly sprouted from your shoulders without you noticing.

It was getting awkward. “What,” you said, trepidation coating your voice.

“I–you’re not mad? About the whole…” his hand gestured to his hairpiece.

Now it was your turn to be confused. “No? I’ve known you were the Fire Lord pretty much since we met, Zuko. I mean–Fire Lord. Zuko.” you corrected. 

Zuko opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes flickered to the rest of your audience and closed it again, evidently choosing to keep it to himself. He awkwardly cleared his throat and inhaled before addressing the rest of the Academy representatives who had all been carefully observing your interaction. (Toph, especially, looked unnervingly smug with her arms crossed and a wicked smirk contorting her mouth as she stared in you and Zuko’s general direction.) “Well, thank you all for being here, and welcome to the Fire Nation. If you’ll follow me we can make our way to the palace and I can show you your rooms.”

With that, Zuko turned on his heel and walked back towards his guards, who snapped to attention and flanked him as he passed to the front of the group. The eyes of your peers lingered on you for a second (though what they were thinking, you had no clue) before following Zuko.

You heaved a sigh and felt nearly all the stress of the past five months leak out of your body. That wasn’t so bad, was it? 

As you carried yourself at the back of the group, you finally allowed yourself to take in your surroundings. It was, after all, your first time in another nation, and Zuko or no Zuko, you were going to enjoy yourself. Red buildings surrounded you everywhere. You felt like you were an ant standing in a field of poppies, insignificant and important at the same time. Obscuring the horizon was a huge volcano covered in green, completely different from the angry black you always imagined the Fire Nation to be smothered in. The air was different than in the Earth Kingdom–it was a thick warmth that surrounded you instead of the usual dry heat back home. You weren’t entirely sure how you felt about the humidity yet, but you were sure you would get used to it eventually. 

A cough from one of the metalbenders drew your attention away from the scenery. You turned to locate the origin out of instinct, but ignored it when all you saw was a few of your peers murmuring amongst each other. 

You went back to looking around the harbor, stopping to glance at Zuko beforehand, only to catch him looking at you already. This time though, unlike the first time you two met, he subtly jerked his head forward over his shoulder, motioning for you to walk with him. 

You looked to the rest of your group to make sure no one was paying any direct attention to you and discreetly sped up your walking pace to catch up to him. Somewhere in the back of your head, though, you remembered that in the presence of Earth Kingdom royalty, you were to never walk side by side with them, only slightly behind, to signify the class difference to other passers-by. 

Zuko looked behind him again, probably to check if you were coming, only to see you trailing behind him slightly. You raised your eyebrows in question when he gave you a weird look instead of telling you what you assumed he needed to. But your silent question was answered when he slowed his pace just enough to walk right beside you. 

Zuko may not have noticed it, and maybe it wasn’t a big thing in the Fire Nation, but the abrupt stop of the low murmuring from the other metalbenders told you they noticed just fine. 

You grimaced, but decided you were too tired emotionally at that moment to worry about whatever political niceties you were or weren’t supposed to follow and turned to face Zuko. “How’d you know?” he asked as soon as you made eye contact.

You raised an eyebrow. “What, about that?” you pointed to his hairpiece.

He nodded.

“Uh, your name’s kind of recognizable. I don’t know much about the Fire Nation, but I know there’s probably not a whole bunch of other ‘Zukos’ running around. Plus, you were the one that suggested we use messenger hawks to keep in touch. And those are exclusively native to the Fire Nation. Aaaand I may or may not have heard a passing description of what the Fire Lord looked like a while ago, and the description may or may not have included a red scar covering his entire left eye and ear. It was pretty easy to piece together after that,” you shrugged.

Zuko winced and looked down at his feet, so you immediately knew he was feeling guilty. “Hey,” you started, getting Zuko to turn back to you, “I figured if you hadn’t told me when we first met, then you didn’t want me to know. I knew you’d tell me when you were ready, so I didn’t say anything.” He still didn’t look convinced. “Please stop looking like a kicked fire-ferret because it’s making me feel bad even though I know I didn’t do anything wrong.”

A small smile appeared on his face at your attempt to humor him into being happy again and you felt yourself smiling back at the sight of it. Maybe the year wait was worth it after all because for whatever reason this smile was even more special than any other one before it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder right?

“You’re really not mad?” he repeated.

“What kind of insensitive asshole would I be if I was? I know running an entire country is probably a stressful job, right? I totally understand if you want to pretend you’re not in charge of a whole ass nation while you’re on vacation with your friends.”

“I was actually also kind of there to talk to Toph about having metalbenders at the gala. So not entirely a vacation.”

“Spirits, do you _want_ me to be mad at you or something? Let me forgive you!”

Zuko winced again. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing! You have nothing to apologize for!”

“S–” Zuko caught himself before he could say it again. He sighed, exasperated, and head hung to his chest in defeat. You threw your head back and let out a laugh, grinning at him. He only turned his head slightly further away from you, but you could tell he was hiding a smile in favor of keeping up his sulking. 

“Oh, wait!” you exclaimed. “You never told me! What kind of animal is Druk? Did you even name him that?”

This time Zuko grinned at you. “I named him Druk,” he confirmed.

He didn’t go on. 

“And Druk is aaaaa…?” you encouraged.

Zuko turned to look at the path in front of him, the smile still playing on his lips. He didn’t say anything else on the matter.

You huffed and looked ahead of you too. “You’re useless,” you grumbled.

His laughter was not as quiet as you believe he thought it was.

–

“DRUK IS A _DRAGON?!_ ”

Your voice was a little loud for the serene atmosphere the palace garden provided, but you didn’t really care at the moment, because perched on Zuko’s shoulder was a small, doll-sized version of the animal you had always heard such terrifying stories about. And there it sat, staring at you with its golden eyes it hadn’t quite grown into yet, looking at you with anything but man-eating malice.

Zuko snickered under his breath at your astonishment, but the grin on his face did nothing to hide his amusement. “Do you want to pet him?” 

You leveled him with an incredulous look. “I–I’m still trying to get over the fact that you have a fucking _dragon_ sitting on your shoulder right now.” 

Druk chirruped at you in curiosity and then flapped his wings slightly, looking at Zuko expectantly. “He wants to meet you,” Zuko translated.

You were still at a loss for words. “What?”

“I’m going to take a couple steps forward, alright?” he warned.

“Uh–”

Zuko walked towards you a little, your feet keeping you planted where you stood, but Druk didn’t wait for Zuko to finish. He hopped off of his shoulder and haphazardly glided over to you, flapping his wings intermittently and settling on your shoulder.

You froze, glancing at the dragon out of the corner of your eye. Your corresponding arm rose cautiously to meet him, and for some reason, Druk took that opportunity to climb down your arm and loop around your hand, facing you directly. “Hello,” you said, not knowing where else to go from here.

Druk responded by breathing fire in your face.

“Druk! No!” Zuko scolded while you reared your head back in surprise. 

Zuko moved to grab him, but you glanced at him from your defensive position. “It’s okay,” you assured. You looked at Druk. He cocked his head and blew fire in your face again. You leaned back further and said, “No,” then you leaned forward to look Druk in the eyes, “don’t do that.”

Druk chirruped and cocked his head in the other direction. You pursed your lips and huffed a small bit of air at him to punctuate the action. Druk stared at you and blew a smaller breath of fire that didn’t reach your face. 

You shook your head to answer the question you hoped the dragon was actually thinking. “Nope. Can’t do that. Not a firebender.” You blew another whoosh of cold air in his face to prove your point. _Please understand me_ , you thought, _I really don’t want to look completely stupid right now._

Druk snorted and steam came out of his nostrils. He chirruped at a lower tone this time and crawled up your arm to sit on your shoulder facing Zuko. You thought the interaction was over, but Druk leaned in closer to your face and huffed fire in Zuko’s direction. 

This just confused you. Your eyes flicked to Zuko for an explanation, but you found him staring at the two of you, dumbfounded. “What does that mean,” you asked.

“I have no clue,” Zuko answered.

You opened your mouth to say something, and Druk did it again. This time, you understood. Your mouth dropped open and you gaped at the dragon in awe. “Is he trying to make it look like I can breathe fire?” you squeaked out.

“I…” Zuko faltered, “I think so.”

Druk snorted again, more steam blowing out of his nose, then flapped his wings and landed on your head. You felt him move around in a circle before stopping. You looked wide-eyed at Zuko. He just smiled and said, “I hope you weren’t planning on going out tonight, cause he just fell asleep.”

You closed your eyes and opened them again, pursing your lips and staring at a random point of nothing in front of Zuko. Druk had just earned his spot on your “Cutest Animal in Existence” list, tied with turtleducks–though they had some competition now. “I might cry,” you announced confidently. 

“You want to sit by the pond instead?”

You went to nod your head, but paused and said, “Okay,” when you remembered the dragon taking a nap up there.

The two of you walked over to the tree that shaded the turtleduck pond. Zuko plopped down and crossed his legs while you stomped your foot, forcing a small pillar of earth out of the ground, and sat next to him, leaning against the tree with your feet propped up on your rock. With a dragon rendering you partially immobile for time being and the peace of the evening settling in, you figured it was as good a time as any to bring up the last question that had been bugging you.

“Hey, Zuko?” you began.

“Hmm?” he answered while playing with a piece of grass.

“Did you really stop writing to me because you thought I’d be mad you didn’t tell me you were the Fire Lord?”

He tensed so hard you could feel it through the foot of space that separated you. “Oh, uhhh–”

“I’m still not mad!” you rushed to clarify again. “I was just wondering.”

Some of the tension left his shoulders, as far as you could tell through the shoulder spikes of his armor. “Oh. Well, um,” he looked down at the grass he was messing with and started pulling at it, “as you know, I was kind of worried you would be mad at me for not telling you I was the Fire Lord during the two weeks I had to tell you, so when I got your letter and you said you would be coming for the gala, I… panicked. A little.” He looked up and over his shoulder at you, trying to read your face. “I’m sorry, again. I didn’t mean to hurt you or cause you as much stress as I was feeling.”

“Oh–” you scoffed in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere a little, “I wasn’t _hurt_ I was fine! I was just curious, you know?” The half-hearted grin melted off your face and you averted your gaze to a baby turtleduck chasing after it’s mom. 

You could feel his eyes on you. Your half-assed attempt to deflect hadn’t worked as well as you wanted it to.

“I know you told me to stop saying it, but I’m sorry. I’m not really good at this whole ‘friends’ thing if that helps at all,” he amended.

Your eyebrows knitted together. “But… Aang and–”

Zuko snorted. “Trust me, the story behind how I became friends with them just proves my point even more.” He ripped a strand of grass out of the ground and began twisting it around his fingers.

“I wasn’t the best person for a lot of my teenage years,” he continued. “And I know I’ve made up for a lot, if not most, of my mistakes to all the people I care about. And I _know_ I’m a better person now, but I still have those days or those small moments that come out of nowhere sometimes, you know? When I feel like I don’t deserve any of it.

“I’ve never had a friend that came so… easily. I’ve always had to work to make friends–earn their trust before I could get anywhere else. And I didn’t with you. I think a part of me feels like I’m going to mess up at any second and when you mentioned you were coming to the gala I guess I kind of figured… that was it. That was the screw-up I was waiting for. I’m sorry,” he finished, dejectedly.

Quiet wove its way back between the two of you. Your heart pounded in your ears and you wished you could reach inside his brain and fix whatever doubts or negative emotions he was feeling and make him happy like he deserved to be. 

You couldn’t actually do that, though, so you settled for the next thing you could think of. You leaned up from the tree, tapping the ground to sink your footstool back into the earth, and carefully scooted up to sit directly beside Zuko without waking Druk in the process. You looked at him still fiddling with his piece of grass and asked, “Do you want a hug?” 

Zuko’s hands stopped moving as he turned to face you. “What?” 

“I’m asking if you want a hug. I know some people don’t really like hugs, like, I’m not really a fan of hugs, but I didn’t know if you were, so I’m asking just in case you’re one of those people too. But you _look_ like you need a hug. So I’m asking if you want one,” you rambled.

There was a bit of time where Zuko just stared at you, and it went on for so long that you almost went to take back what you said. But then you heard him mutter in the quietest voice you had ever heard him speak in, so soft you barely caught it to begin with, “… yes please,” and you felt your heart squeeze.

You scooted over to close the few inches that still separated you and he pulled you the rest of the way. Zuko’s arms wrapped around you and he buried his head in the crook of your neck. Heat radiated off of him and seeped into your bones from his palms, his fingertips, his breath. Your arms wrapped around his torso and you didn’t know how it was possible, since you were both sitting in the grass in the most awkward position known to man, but it was the most comfortable hug you’d ever been a part of.

“(Y/N)?” he mumbled into your shoulder.

“Hmm?” you said into his chest armor.

“I don’t miss you too.”

Your eyes widened and you were brought back to the end-note you wrote him in your last letter. Because of that, you knew exactly what he was trying to say. You clasped your wrists together behind his back and pulled him closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, as far as i know, zuko doesn’t get his dragon in the comics and i don’t want to google it cause i dont want to spoil anything for myself. I KNOW this. but its my fanfic and i wanted a dragon in it so he is. also chap 3 is in the works


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you come to some realizations, toph is nosy and--wtf, is that the owner of that banger tea shop from that one time you went to Ba Sing Se over 5 months ago????????

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this bad boy can fit so much self projection in it *slaps hood of laptop* enjoy part 3 yall and thanks for all the support on parts 1 and 2!!! part 4 will come at some point and im about 99% sure that will be the last part for this fic 
> 
> happy holidays!

The gala was in a week.

Even if you weren’t already aware of that, you still would’ve been able to tell from the amount of bustle going on in the palace. Workers, kitchen staff, guards, _everyone_ held a good chance of accidentally running you over while in the halls. Obviously, an event like this had to be prepared for, but you never imagined it would be like _this._ Everyone was so stressed out it was almost making _you_ stress out. 

But you were determined not to. This was your first time out of the Earth Kingdom, and you were _not_ going to let anything ruin it for you. 

You still had to train as needed to make sure your metalbending was top notch for the gala. Important people from all over the world were going to be there, all with the option to ask you whatever they wanted about Toph’s patented bending form. It was imperative that you didn’t mess up when representing the Academy. But any time you weren’t training, Toph said all of you were free to explore wherever you wanted (as long as you didn’t get yourselves killed before your debut at the gala. She stressed that part very much).

The day after you arrived in the Fire Nation, you woke up a lot earlier than you usually did. You snuck off to the garden where Zuko had taken you the previous night, planning on the peace of the morning to only enhance the solitude there. It would make for the perfect spot to train for a bit before wandering around the rest of the day. But the garden was not as empty as you thought it would be.

Someone sat under the tree by the turtleduck pond, where you and Zuko had sat and talked. _Where Zuko hugged you and told you he’d missed you even though you’ve technically only known him for 2 weeks,_ a traitorous voice slipped into your head. You slapped the voice away. You already knew you were a terrible overthinker, you didn’t need your conscience reinforcing that right now. _It’s called affection,_ you told yourself, _and it’s not necessarily exclusive to couples. Friends hug all the time. It doesn’t mean anything._

You sighed and turned around to wander the palace for another training spot, but you were stupid and ran your foot directly into a rather large tree root. “Fuck!” you whispered on instinct not very quietly. You balled your fists and heaved a breath to try and calm yourself, but the unidentified man had heard you.

“Are you alright?” he called from his spot under the tree. 

You took another deep breath and turned to face him, any words you were prepared to say suddenly stuck in your throat. All traces of pain left your head and were replaced with pure, and utter confusion.

“ _Iroh?”_ you asked incredulously.

You could see his face light up with recognition from where you stood. “(Y/N)! So good to see you again! How have you been?” he exclaimed, rising from his meditation pose.

“Uh, I’m good, thank you.” you managed.

“Good, good,” Iroh made his way over to you. The movement spurred you out of your funk. Meeting him halfway, the two of you bowed to each other, and you were finally able to ask him the question you needed to:

“What are you doing in the Fire Nation?”

He looked surprised for a moment, but recovered, chuckling good-naturedly. “Oh, I guess I never did mention where I was from during our last meeting, did I?”

You shook your head blankly. 

“I’m here visiting my nephew for the gala.” He raised an eyebrow and leaned in slightly as if he was about to tell you a secret. “I may live in the Earth Kingdom now, but I was actually born here, in the Fire Nation,” he held a hand up and ignited a flame in his palm for emphasis.

You watched the fire dance in his hand until he clenched his fist, quenching the flame. “Huh,” you said. It made sense that he was from the Fire Nation, but you still didn’t know how he had gotten into the palace. You looked up again to his face and squinted, assessing him for a second. There was clearly something you didn’t know about him, and you didn’t know if it was good or bad yet. “That’s… cool,” you finished lamely. 

Iroh’s eyes darted behind you, then returned to your gaze with a new twinkle in them. Oh, you didn’t like the look of that _at all._ “You know, I think you and my nephew would actually get along very well. Would you mind if I introduced you to him?” he asked.

“Um, sure, I think I can do that sometime this week, when are you--”

“--Perfect! This way.”

“O-Oh, we’re going _now?”_

Iroh ignored your question and breezed past you at a surprisingly fast pace for his age, forcing you to follow him. You were so busy trying to keep up with your half-walk-half-jog, that it completely caught you off guard when he greeted someone up ahead with a “Zuko! You’re early! There is someone I would like you to meet.”

You almost got whiplash from the double-take that sent you into. You hadn’t even noticed Zuko was nearby. 

Zuko stopped his walk at Iroh’s call and glanced up from his spot under the breezeway. He looked tired, but he instantly perked up when he noticed you, only for his eyes to widen in what looked like panic a second later.

Iroh and you climbed the stairs and reached Zuko. Zuko’s eyes flitted between the two of you. “Zuko, this is (Y/N), a metalbender from Toph’s Academy. (Y/N), this is Fire Lord Zuko, and also, my nephew,” Iroh finished with a rather smug smile gracing his features.

Your brain had short-circuited. _How,_ was the beginning to just about all the questions you had, and also the only word circulating through your head. Did you still need to bow in this situation? You figured it wouldn’t hurt. Plus, you didn’t know what else to do.

You could practically feel Zuko’s eyes burning a hole into your head as your torso stuttered its way into a bow that radiated insecurity for sure. When you stood upright again, he stared at you with his brow furrowed and asked you a question that you were also asking yourself: “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know. This is a very weird situation for me right now. I’m still kind of processing it.”

The smile had been wiped from Iroh’s face as he glanced between the two of you. “Do you two know each other already?” 

Zuko nodded, suspicion dominating his features as he studied his uncle.

Iroh looked a little too happy. “Oh, well this is very unexpected. I did not know this,” he said, doing a very bad job at containing his very obvious glee.

You don’t know why, but this reaction triggered something in you. An image of you and Iroh sat at a table in the middle of the Jasmine Dragon popped into your head. Your mind instantly flashed back to all the times Iroh had gone on rambling about his beloved nephew, all the unnecessary detail he put into describing him to you, all the hints dropped all that time ago in his tea shop that you didn’t realize were actually hints. The thought of an old man trying to set his nephew up with the first customer he saw who was similar in age was something that had crossed your mind as a joke, but... You glanced at Iroh and the twinkle in his eye that looked more mischievous the longer you stared at it. Was he _actually_ trying to set you up with Zuko back then? That couldn’t be right. Maybe he had another nephew? You were always really bad at reading people--maybe you were misinterpreting everything right now.

But you didn’t think you were. So instead of voicing all the thoughts swarming your head, you tried to break whatever weird tension that had somehow wormed its way into the conversation. “Wow!” you laughed weakly. “I can’t believe I managed to meet both of you separately! What’s going on with that, right?” Your confusion had now leaked its way into your nervous laughter.

“Yeah...” Zuko trailed off, still analyzing his uncle’s facial expressions. 

Iroh chuckled. “Well, I’ll leave you two, then.” He turned and bowed to you. “It was very nice seeing you, (Y/N). I hope to see you again before the gala.”

You returned the bow, and answered, “Of course! See you later.”

Zuko just looked confused now. “Wait, uncle, I thought we were--”

“Oh, Zuko,” Iroh consoled, “My old bones aren’t what they used to be. I’m afraid I’m not as ready for training as I thought I was. We will have to just reschedule our plans for later.” You could see the smile forming in the corner of his mouth. With a final clap on Zuko’s shoulder, Iroh walked back the way Zuko had come, leaving the two of you alone.

Zuko’s eyes followed his uncle’s retreating figure for a moment, a frown adorning his face, before he turned back to you. “Well, I guess I don’t have to introduce you to my uncle anymore,” he laughed.

“Ha, yeah,” you said, failing to return the same energy. 

He raised his eyebrow. “You in the mood for some hand-to-hand sparring? I kind of lost my partner.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” you responded noncommittally.

You shuffled behind him to an open area in the garden. Iroh was trying to set you up with his nephew. His nephew was Zuko. You were friends with Zuko. How did you feel about this? You couldn’t tell.

A mental image of Zuko and you holding hands snaked its way to the forefront of your mind. You and Zuko. Holding hands. You and Zuko. Together. You, and... Zuko.

Your stomach wobbled and your heart sped up a little. You were confused again for what felt like the thousandth time that morning.

What the _fuck_ was going on with you?

\--

Despite your plan to take in the scenery of the Fire Nation, you ended up spending the majority of what remained of that day wandering the streets you were supposed to be admiring, trying to figure out your feelings. Because, really, what the _fuck_ did a wobbly stomach mean? Could stomachs even wobble? You didn’t think they could, but you also couldn’t think of a better word to describe what happened to you after that vision popped into your head. 

You barely slept that night. And when you did… well, you didn’t know if you had the energy or will to even _try_ and unpack all the shit that happened in your dream. 

Why was this happening to you now? What was even happening? It was like the rest of your body and brain were finally catching up to what the other half of your brain already knew: Zuko was cute.

Yes, you said it. You weren’t Toph. You could clearly see that Zuko was attractive. You had thought it multiple times before, because, well, he _was._ It was irrefutable. Even people that weren’t attracted to men had to admit he was at least objectively pleasing to look at, right?

So what was going on? If you didn’t have any problem admitting that, why was your brain fucking around with you so much?

You finally figured it out that afternoon.

You and Zuko had met up for a quiet lunch in the garden in the usual spot during one of his breaks. He had been in and out of meetings all morning, finalizing last-minute details to the gala and welcoming guests who arrived early, so you had forced him to take a breather with you. 

You laid in the grass, head near the edge of the pond with Druk taking a nap on your stomach while Zuko sat leaned against the tree. His foot bumped your leg occasionally and you would swat him for it, earning a small laugh from him every time without fail.

The air settled again into its natural peace after you had just finished telling Zuko the worst joke you knew. He’d laughed, of course, but you knew it was more of an “I-can’t-believe-how-bad-that-was” laugh instead of a “that-was-hilarious” laugh.

You had gotten very focused on winning the staring contest one of the turtleducks had (in your opinion) challenged you to. It swam away in disinterest after a bit, but you took that as a win and silently pumped your fist to yourself in victory anyway. However, when you shifted your head back to Zuko, he was already looking at you.

A faint smile softened his usually stern features. He didn’t shy away when you met his gaze.

He looked at you like you were important to him.

And if you didn't know any better, you'd even go as far as to say that he was looking at you as if you were the most important thing in the universe, Spirit World included.

But you did know better. Zuko had even told you himself that he wasn't good at making friends, so you were a huge milestone in terms of his relationship and people skills. You knew it was impossible for any other meaning to be garnered from that look.

The tension that coated the two of you was different--you didn’t know in what way, but nonetheless, you were desperate to break its suffocating hold. 

"... Why are you looking at me like that," you ventured warily.

"Like what?" he smoothly responded.

"Like you know something I don't." Your eyes narrowed at him and you raised an eyebrow comically, trying to goof your way out of the tension harboring an unknown agenda.

His smile grew. "Maybe I do."

You gasped dramatically and gaped at him. Druk startled awake for a moment from the sudden sound before returning to sleep. "You would _dare_ have information and not tell me about it?!"

Zuko’s smile turned into a grin as he laughed at your antics. "Am I not allowed to have secrets anymore?" he teased.

"No!"

"Really?" 

"Yes!"

"So you're telling me you don't have anything in your head right now that you haven't told me? At all?"

You were so ready to say yes. You had it at the tip of your tongue, ready to fire back, but the little voice in the back of your head that hated you decided to chime in and tell you that no, in fact, that was not true. Because he didn't know you thought he was the only person you had ever met to fully embody adorable and ridiculously hot at the same time. He didn't know that his smile and his laugh could bring you out of the shittiest of moods without any effort. He didn't know that it was a real fucking chore to stay mad at him. He didn't know that you would do anything to keep him happy and that you would be there for him even when he was tired and maybe a little broken. He didn't know that you admired him for his courage to look at the person he used to be and make an active decision to change. Or that you looked up to him for his leadership skills and the love he had for his country. He didn't know that you would willingly listen to him talk for the rest of eternity just because you loved the sound of his voice. He didn’t know a lot of things, it turned out. And you definitely weren’t going to tell him.

 _Fuck_ , you thought. _Am I in love with him?_

 _Probably_ , your inner voice that hated you answered.

Zuko threw his head back and laughed at your obvious lack of an answer to his question and your heart squeezed.

Shit.

\--

“ _Mother_ of _badgermoles_ , _what_ is bothering you _this time_ , Funky?!?!”

Since your revelation at lunch, you had wandered the palace in a trance. Your thoughts were jumbled and aimless, like they hadn’t quite caught up to the rest of your mind yet, and you found yourself doubting every sentence your brain came up with that involved the words “love” and “Zuko.” You’d never been in love! How were you supposed to accurately identify this feeling with no previous experience?

You had approached Toph under the guise of wanting to practice your seismic sense, but really, you just needed to do something that didn't require you to think about Zuko.

Toph apparently did not appreciate being used as a distraction from your own thoughts.

The nickname was new, though.

You heard the _shink_ of her meteor being transformed back into an arm brace instead of the projectile you'd been attempting to dodge for the past hour, and you reached up to lift the blindfold off your eyes. 

Light flooded your vision as your eyes adjusted to take in the courtyard while you answered her. “Nothing, I’m fine.”

“That’s what you said _last_ time I asked you that question, and we both know you were lying then too!” Toph exclaimed, exasperated. “ _You’re_ the one who asked _me_ to help you practice, so I think I deserve to know what’s going on,” Toph punctuated her speech by crossing her arms and glaring in your general direction dramatically.

You sighed in defeat and considered your options. 

You weren’t sure Toph was the best person to spill your inner turmoil to. She wasn’t exactly the therapist of her friend group--as far as you could tell, that role fell to Aang most of the time. You were pretty sure she’d never been in a relationship before, so she sat at the exact same experience level as you did in this situation. 

But, she was also kind of your only option. Normally, Zuko would be the person you would go to for advice or problem solving, but Zuko _was_ your problem at the moment. You couldn’t turn to him this time. And out of all the people at the Beifong Metalbending Academy and Team Avatar, Toph was the second person you were closest to, after Zuko. 

Plus, you _really_ needed to figure this shit out. 

You took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, but you can’t tell _anyone_ what I’m about to tell you.”

A shit-eating grin spread across her face. “Awesome.”

“Toph,” you warned, “I’m being serious.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I won’t say anything. Now spill,” she assured, plopping herself on the ground.

You sighed and felt your nerves ready themselves to prevent you from saying anything they deemed incriminating evidence of human emotion.

You sat across from Toph and tried to figure out where to start. A bead of sweat rolled down your chest; you didn't know if it was from the humidity of the day or the fact that you were about to express your feelings to someone that wasn’t yourself.

After about a minute of silence, you realized you were, once again, overthinking things, so you opened your mouth with no idea what was going to come out and let it decide last minute what you were going to say. However, the first thing that came out happened to be the very beginning of your predicament. 

Once you started, your mouth didn’t stop moving. You told her every thought that crossed your mind about Zuko: when you met him, what you felt when he left, what you thought about him, why he was pretty much your only friend, the things you had told him when no one else was around, what you liked about him, your stress about his absent letters, your trouble with identifying feelings in general, all the way up to how you were now getting weird wobbles in your stomach when he was around.

When you finished, it felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders; though you were still a little queasy in regards to what Toph would say, your mind was… quiet, for once. 

Toph was also quiet, which was not making you feel better. 

“So, yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with me and I need help figuring it out,” you added for good measure.

Toph leaned back on her hands with her legs still crossed and inhaled the most dramatic breath you had ever heard before responding, “You know who you sound like?” She didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “Aang and Katara. More specifically when they talk about each other to other people.”

“Oh,” you said. You didn’t know what that meant. “Okay?”

Toph waited a beat, but could tell you didn’t get her point and clarified, “They’re dating.”

Heat instantly rushed to your face and burned through your cheeks. You felt like a firebender, but not in a good way. “Oh--well--I mean--that doesn’t mean--”

“(Y/N),” Toph cut off your pathetic scramble for an answer.

“Yes, Sifu?” 

“You’re in love with him.”

You closed your eyes, already wishing you hadn’t said anything. “I was hoping you weren’t going to say that,” you admitted dejectedly.

“Well, I did. Because It’s true.” She tilted her head to the side. “And I think you know that already.”

You did. The more you thought over her analysis of your incoherent emotion dump, the more you realized she was right, and that you had also been right about your feelings this whole time. Which, you supposed, was a good thing. “Yeah,” you sighed.

You flopped back onto the ground, fully aware of the amount of dirt you were going to have on your clothes after, and let out a loud, aggravated groan. “Well, great. I’m in love with my best friend. Who’s _also_ the fucking _Fire Lord._ What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

“How am I supposed to know? That’s your problem,” Toph contributed noncommittally.

You groaned again and slapped your hands over your face. “Yes, I _know_ it’s my problem. You’re not helping,” you complained, your words muffled by your hands.

“Hey, don’t get mad at me! I did my part. You asked me to help you figure out your feelings, and that’s exactly what I did,” Toph defended. You heard her rustle around and when you lifted your head to look at her, peeking out from behind your hands, she had one leg propped over the other and was picking her toes.

You sighed and dropped your head to the ground again, already feeling ten years being shaved off your life-span. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I just...” you removed your hands from your face to rest on your stomach, “After all that, I’m in the exact same place as I was before, just more royally screwed over.” You scoffed and mumbled to yourself, “He probably doesn’t even like me.”

Toph didn’t say anything, but you didn’t blame her. You wouldn’t know what to say to the amount of whining you were doing either.

“Well,” she announced out of nowhere, “Training session over. I’m going to see if I can sneak some food from the kitchen without getting yelled at by the chef.” You propped yourself up on your forearms and looked at her as she stood to leave. “If you need to complain about your boy problems again, just come find me.” She kicked your foot, walked off before you could even thank her, and that was that.

You leaned back and splayed out your limbs in a purple pentapus position, stared at a flock of birds passing overhead, and wished you could be one of them.

\--

You walked through the halls that evening and passed Toph and Iroh walking in time, whispering to each other. 

Iroh looked up and spotted you. He grasped Toph’s arm, halting her mid-sentence, and unnecessarily announced as he quickly bowed, “Hello, (Y/N)! Wonderful weather tonight, isn’t it?”

You returned the bow. “Um, yes, it feels great.”

“Great,” he answered as if he was somehow responsible for the temperature of the air at the moment. 

You continued past them and glanced back to see that they had resumed their whispering.

You wondered what they were talking about.

\--

You slept in the next day, mentally exhausted from the day before. It seemed like your life used to move at a normal pace, but now that you were in the Fire Nation, you were experiencing a year’s worth of events. Was this what a mid-life crisis felt like? Or the opposite of one? Where instead of you realizing you haven’t accomplished anything noteworthy in your life and panicking, the _universe_ does and shoves a bunch of stuff at you for plot development on the great stage we call life? That’s what it felt like.

Or you were just being overdramatic. That was an option too.

When the bed was no longer comfortable and no amount of shifting sleeping positions could change that, you forced yourself to get up and headed to the kitchens to see if one of the chefs would have mercy on you for missing breakfast and give you something to eat anyway.

You were walking back from successfully negotiating for some fresh milk bread when you heard them.

“I don’t know… what if--” Zuko. You would know his voice anywhere. What was he worried about?

“Oh come on!” Sokka? Were you imagining that? “I promise it’ll work. Trust me. I’m the idea guy, remember? I got this.” Nope, it was definitely Sokka.

You turned the corner and your suspicions were confirmed. Sokka walked in step with Zuko while Katara was paired off with Iroh behind them. The two siblings both carried bags over their shoulders, Sokka’s with a pant leg hanging out of the top flap. They had probably just arrived for the gala. Both groups were in the middle of conversations so you were planning on just passing them so as to not interrupt, but Sokka changed that when he spotted you.

“(Y/N)!” he exclaimed, ditching Zuko to run towards you.

“Look, look!” Sokka whipped out a piece of parchment with a stick figure person painted on it when he reached you. “It’s you!” You could hear Zuko sigh as he walked over to join the new conversation, but when you glanced at him, there was a small smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. How had it taken you this long to realize your feelings for him? Now that you had accepted them, you thought your feelings couldn’t be more obvious.

The portrait, of course, looked like anything _but_ you. But Sokka looked very excited as he told you about the art classes he’d taken up on a whim, so you couldn’t find it in your heart to be snarky this time as you exchanged a knowing look with Zuko.

“... and so I thought, ‘(Y/N)! The perfect person to paint for my first portrait!’ You know, since Zuko was worried that he would forget what you looked like, I--”

“--Sokka,” Zuko was quick to intervene. He stared at him with ill-intention written all over his face, ready to be unleashed if Sokka continued.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Sokka didn’t look that sorry. “SOOOoooooo, (Y/N). What’s going on with you? Anything new happening? Anything manifesting? Growing? Blossoming? New _stuff_ developing for ya?” Sokka finished his query by grinning widely and staring at you like he was expecting you to answer his question seriously.

 _Oh,_ you thought. _So he’s just high on cactus juice, then._ Because you were certain that would never come out of a sober person’s mouth on purpose.

You met his stare and hesitantly responded, “Was that supposed to be some really weird way of asking me if I’ve hit puberty yet?”

The grin slid off of Sokka’s face and he leveled you with a disappointed glare. Zuko turned his head away from Sokka to hide his laughter. Iroh and Katara had been silent for a while, but you knew for sure that they had been listening in on your conversation by Katara’s snort of laughter. She chose this moment to step in.

“Hey, (Y/N), I was planning on heading down to the markets to look for some souvenirs to bring back home. You want to come with me?” she asked. 

Sokka, for some reason, looked panicked at this. “Oh, uhhhh, actually, (Y/N) was going to start learning sword fighting byyyyy watching Zuko and I spar.” 

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Uh, what?”

Katara seemed confused too. Sokka turned to his sister to look her in the eyes unblinkingly and said with an unnatural emphasis on every word, “Why don’t you and (Y/N) watch together? It’s still early; you guys can watch and then go to the market after.” His words conveyed one thing, but the way he was looking at Katara made you think he was trying to communicate something entirely different.

Somehow, Katara was able to decipher what her brother was trying to tell her. “Oh, sure! We’ll head to the gardens and you can meet us there.” She turned to Zuko. “I’m guessing you need to change?” she asked, referring to his royal armor. 

“I--” Zuko seemed stuck between looking at you and glaring at Sokka and Katara, but after a second, he succumbed to whatever he was fighting and mumbled, defeated, “Yeah, apparently.”

“Great! Come on, (Y/N),” Katara said, grabbing your wrist and dragging you away from everyone.

You looked over your shoulder and met Zuko’s eyes as you left, giving him a small smile to try and get rid of whatever negativity he was feeling.

His face softened as he smiled back and you knew that it worked.

\--

You felt like something was going on with Sokka. The thing was, you hadn’t actually known him that long, so for all you knew, he was always like this--“this,” being, loud, cocky, and talking when he really shouldn’t be talking.

You told Katara your concerns and all she did was snicker and assure you that he was, most indeed, “always like this.” Then she went back to watching the fight from her spot in the grass next to you.

Even though you didn’t actually have any desire to learn sword fighting, you had to admit, it was cool to watch. Sokka and Zuko were both way more skilled at the craft than you thought they would be; Sokka wielding a single blade with a dark sheen to it that he had earlier told you was his “space-sword!” and Zuko effortlessly holding his ground with his curved dual swords. And you supposed the fact that you could see his biceps now that he’d changed into more casual attire was a plus too.

But Sokka had a bad habit of talking during matches--something that was obviously confusing the shit out of Zuko, who had already told him to shut up multiple times before.

What happened next was a good example.

“Man, it is _HOT_ out here, don’t you think, Zuko?” Sokka fanned his face with one hand dramatically. It really wasn’t that hot out; in fact, you thought it felt pretty nice, but they had been sparring for a while and you figured anyone who grew up in either of the poles would be better adapted to cooler weather.

Zuko simply replied from his ready stance, “I’m a firebender. I’m always hot.”

Sokka, for some reason, saw this as a chance to include you in the banter. “ _Yeah_ you are! Right, (Y/N)?” He proceeded to cheekily wink at you.

Zuko glared at Sokka even more than he already was. “Stop bothering them, Sokka.”

Sokka ignored him. “Well, I’m hot,” he announced. He then dropped his sword in the grass and slipped out of his tunic top, swinging it around in their air above him before tossing it to Zuko, where it promptly landed on his head, covering his face entirely.

Zuko froze and slowly lowered his blades to stand up straight before yanking Sokka’s tunic off his head to glare at him. The action ruffled his hair and pulled a good number of strands out of his already messed up bun.

It took a great amount of effort from you and Katara to not laugh out loud. Katara had to look away, while you resorted to covering your mouth with your hand inconspicuously.

Sokka cackled himself and walked over to retrieve his tunic.

A brief conversation occurred then, consisting of grumpy faces (mainly on Zuko’s part), and a fuck ton of angry whisper-yelling until finally, Sokka strutted back to where his sword lay in the grass with a smug smile on his face.

Zuko stood in his spot for a good second before setting down his swords and taking his own tunic off, tossing it to the side. He picked up his swords again, muttering to himself.

Your discrete laughter suddenly turned into indiscrete coughing on your own air. 

Katara quickly came to your aid. “Are you okay?” she asked as she rested a hand on your shoulder. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” you managed, but you were very much not good.

You were not prepared for that. You were not prepared for a topless Zuko at that moment. He was _way_ more ripped than you thought he would be. Your brain halted to a stop along with your breathing for a second. After you had regained proper functionality, all you could do was swallow and avoid looking at him for long periods of time even though Zuko standing there, sweaty, with no top and messy bun hair, holding two swords, was probably the hottest thing you’d ever seen.

Sokka and Zuko continued to spar and you continued to sneak glances at Zuko’s back muscles until Toph chose to make herself known.

“SOKKA!” she yelled from under the breezeway.

Sokka and Zuko halted their match and Sokka responded in kind, “WHAT?”

“I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!” Toph answered.

“NOW?”

“YES!”

During their screaming match, you noticed Iroh standing quietly behind Toph, watching the whole situation with amusement. You hadn’t even registered he was missing but now that you saw him, you realized that during your interaction with Sokka when they first arrived earlier, Iroh hadn’t really said much. Just stood and listened. Just as he was now.

Iroh noticed your suspicious gaze. He met it, smiled, and winked at you.

Something was definitely up. People don’t just wink like that unironically, and you just had two different people do it in the span of about thirty minutes. Iroh had also already revealed his secret intentions when he tried to introduce you to Zuko, so he wasn’t innocent. Now he was lurking in the background of conversations, having secret talks with Toph, who was the only one who knew about your feelings for Zuko, and now the two of them were pulling Sokka away to discuss something you obviously weren’t supposed to hear. You didn’t know _exactly_ what was about to happen, but you had a good idea, and you could tell for sure that your stay in the Fire Nation was about to get a lot more stressful. 

A storm was brewing, and you were in the center of its path. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of meddle-week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how I said there was like a 99% chance this was going to be the final part? yeah well I lied. the 1% happened. part 5 will be up at some point and I'm just gonna stop telling yall how many parts I think this fic is gonna be bc I've been wrong so many times. sorry this is long as hell idk what happened 🙃 if you see my crush on mai projected in here no you didnt

Listen, you knew you could be dumb sometimes, but you weren’t stupid. 

Sokka had been acting pretty weird and you had already determined Iroh was guilty of meddling, so now that they had each other to bounce ideas off of, it couldn’t have been more obvious what they were doing.

You had mixed feelings about this revelation. A part of you was kind of (very) stressed about not knowing when their team of sorts would strike next with you and Zuko as pieces in their odd game of Pai Sho. How were you not supposed to be nervous that they would slip up and Zuko would find out about your feelings for him, ultimately ruining your friendship and any hope of ever visiting the Fire Nation without residual emotional baggage? It took strength, but you kept reminding yourself that you were just one person against three people who seemed very determined to achieve their goal, so, really, what were you supposed to do?

Their first move was to get Ty Lee. 

When Sokka came to find you, he seemed more excited than he should’ve been about a “Team-Avatar-minus-the-Avatar-plus-friends yoga session,” as he called it. He pulled you along by the wrist like an overexcited polar bear-dog on a leash from the palace gates you had just entered through. 

The two of you flew past people, sometimes nearly crashing into them until you reached the garden, where an array of mats had been set out for people to occupy. You heaved and tried to regain your breath from the sudden burst of exertion. As your heart rate slowed, you looked around the garden to see who else was a part of this so-called yoga session. 

It seemed everyone was (except Aang, of course, who was supposed to be arriving later that day), plus another girl with brown hair tied up in a very long braid who seemed unnervingly chipper.

Sokka had ditched you already to go whisper with Toph while occasionally glancing back at you. You rolled your eyes and began to walk over to where Zuko stood off to the side (brooding for the most part, but still looking fondly at everyone like usual), but before you could, Katara was at your side pulling you to the mats.

“What--” 

“This is your mat!” She said, pointing to one in the middle of the group when you arrived there.

“Uh--” Katara walked away with a slight skip in her step to join Toph and Sokka before you could finish. “We have assigned mats?” you mumbled to yourself.

With no other moves to make, you sat down. Looking around your area, you noticed the mat to the left of you was only about two inches from your own. Your eyes flicked around you and saw that every other mat was placed at a distance apart _much_ bigger than that. A sense of dread started to form in the pit of your stomach as you realized what you had been dragged into.

Before you could do anything about this, though, the girl with the braid called the session to order.

“Is everyone here? Yay! This is going to be _so_ much fun,” she declared, clapping her hands together briefly and taking a seat on her isolated mat at the front. As everyone quickly took their places (conveniently quick enough to leave the suspiciously close mat next to you the only one open for Zuko to take), she quickly turned around to you and said, “I’m Ty Lee, by the way! I know we’ve never met before, but I’ve heard a _lot_ about you.” She followed this with a wink. “Nice to meet you!” she finished and promptly turned back around.

A slight rustling on your left prompted you to turn away from staring with fear at Ty Lee’s back and toward Zuko settling down in his spot instead. 

“I take it you didn’t know about this either?” he whispered, leaning in slightly.

You shook your head. “I just came back from town for a late breakfast--my stomach doesn't really feel like doing yoga right now.”

His brow furrowed in alarm and he reared back a little. “You better not throw up on me.”

You swatted his arm with the back of your hand, earning a glare from him that you could tell was for show from the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, as he rubbed the offended spot. Your hand tingled with warmth that you knew now wasn’t because he was a firebender.

“Alright! Let’s start off with some light stretching,” Ty Lee called from the front. “We’ll start from the neck and work our way down. Twist your neck lightly to the left--”

Zuko’s sigh was utterly drenched in reluctance as everyone shifted into a half-lotus position and did as instructed.

“And to the right--”

Half of your brain was focused on stretching, and the other half was only focused on how close his knee was to yours. They weren’t even touching, but you could somehow feel the small bit of space that separated you. 

“And tilt your head up to the sky...”

Your neck craned back and you stared at the clouds. You felt yourself starting to relax as your mind started to let go of its hyper-awareness of Zuko, but a small flick on your knee snapped you out of it.

Your head swiveled slightly to the left, to glare at the obvious culprit. 

Zuko just sat with his head tilted back and eyes closed toward the sun. As usual, his small smirk gave him away. The voice in your head that had been quiet since you came to terms with your feelings for him made itself known again and pointed out that Zuko looked completely at home basking in the warmth of the element that fueled his bending. 

“Aaaaaand look down to your lap; keep your back straight and drop your head. Feel the stretch in the back of your neck.”

A smile threatened to worm its way onto your face and you didn't do a very good job at fighting it. Zuko’s light chuckle told you he saw it well enough.

The rest of stretching consisted mostly of you and Zuko taking turns poking and smacking each other when the other wasn’t looking. To anyone else, you probably looked like the equivalent of two five-year-olds playing footsie when you weren't supposed to, but to the rest of Team-Avatar-minus-the-Avatar, this was normal. Which was probably the reason behind Sokka’s constant disappointed groans from the row behind you.

For a moment, you thought that maybe this meddling of theirs wouldn’t be so bad. The moments you got to hang out with Zuko were getting scarcer and scarcer the closer the gala got; you liked having time to see him without the guilt that came with taking him away from his job.

And you didn’t know if you believed in coincidences but knew you sure as Oma believed in irony, because it was almost as if Sokka had read your mind and taken it as a challenge to see exactly how much he could make you regret that statement. 

Ty Lee had moved everyone into a forward fold. Now that you thought about it, Sokka had been having balance issues even before that position, almost toppling over in the warrior pose earlier because of some wind--and it wasn’t even that windy. You’d initially thought he’d be great at yoga, like Zuko, or at least decent enough to touch his toes like you were supposed to be doing, but he’d also been messing with Toph next to him the entire time, so you guess that could've been throwing him off.

You probably should've known that he would try to use that to his advantage.

Zuko was busy trying to figure out a time to jab you in the foot as a part of your little game, but your hands were covering your feet as you touched them, leaning into the pose to stretch out your hamstrings. Right as you reached up to scratch your nose, he saw his window of opportunity and went for the attack, but Sokka saw this as an opportunity to push Zuko over.

You couldn’t see all of it since Sokka was behind you, but what you did hear was a “Wah!” right before a hand reached out and jabbed Zuko in the back of the knee, folding his legs. Zuko frantically waved his arms out in front of him to try and balance himself but fell face-first into the dirt anyway.

“Damn,” you heard Sokka curse under his breath as you barked out a laugh.

“Zuko! Are you alright?” Ty Lee asked, looking at the scene from upside-down through her legs.

Zuko looked up and glared at you for finding his blunder so hilarious, dirt heavily smeared on his face, which only made you cackle some more. “He’s fine,” you told Ty Lee, mirth decorating your voice.

His continued glare made you feel a little bad, though. “Okay, okay, sorry. I’m done,” you relented, a smile still on your face. “Here--” you bent all the dirt off his face and back to the ground-- “Better?”

Zuko rolled his eyes lightly and grumbled a reluctant, “Yes,” while you kneeled down and grabbed his arm, helping him up.

A blush stained his cheeks at the contact and you felt a similar heat under your skin when you realized you were still holding on to him.

The two of you separated. Zuko awkwardly avoided your gaze while you sniffed reflexively and scratched your nose even though there wasn’t an itch, really just trying to do something to make your hand stop feeling like _that_. But just as you were preparing to move on with the next pose and forget about any embarrassing interaction with him, you were interrupted.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” a man in elaborate robes called as he bowed. Not elaborate enough to top the Fire Lord, but someone obviously important enough to whisk him away for meetings. Probably a council member, or advisor. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but your presence is needed in the kitchen to finalize the gala menu.” 

Zuko hadn’t been smiling before, but somehow his face still dropped. You could feel the shift in his mood--see the stress return through the tensing of his muscles everywhere but his face. He didn’t want to leave, but he had to.

Zuko met your stare and offered you a small smile which you returned. He said a quick thank you to Ty Lee and was off.

Your eyes followed him as he left, wishing you were allowed to go after him, but you reminded yourself you couldn’t. It didn’t matter that you were his friend; he was the Fire Lord, and you were a metalbender student--not even a master. You held no credibility in the Fire Nation. You held no credibility to have _anything_ to do with the Fire Lord, even in the alternate universe where he _did_ like you back.

You turned away from Zuko’s retreating figure, spirits successfully dampened thanks to your own intrusive thoughts, only to catch Sokka’s gaze. He just smirked at you. You looked at him waggling his eyebrows, heard the snickering coming from Toph, and instantly knew most everything that had just happened was their doing.

You almost didn’t even want to know what they had planned next.

\--

They locked you in a closet. And it wasn’t even a big one, either.

Toph tricked you into walking inside by telling you she needed to get a cane for a trip into town with Katara and asking you to get one for her. While searching through random areas in the palace looking for something to serve properly, you brought up the fact that she had seismic sense to see. All she did was yell, “Are you trying to tell me, a blind person, how to be blind?!” effectively shutting you up.

With that, you ended up finding a small supply closet filled with sticks (that ended up being brooms) and called out to Toph as you went to grab one. 

But the second you stepped inside you heard the door close behind you and the lock twist, and you knew what was going on.

No amount of banging on the door had gotten you out, and five minutes later, the already cramped space became even smaller when Zuko was shoved in as well. If the closet were actually big enough, the force with which he toppled into you would have _definitely_ knocked you to the floor, but you were just pinned to the wall instead, which Zuko fixed immediately by backing up the few inches that he could.

The door was locked again, this time followed by an almost unnoticeable sound of crumpling metal. Your stomach dropped. You knew that sound.

“Toph,” you called over Zuko’s confused grumbling, warning evident in your voice as you maneuvered your head around his torso that blocked your view of the door. “Tell me you didn’t do what I think you just did,” you ordered.

Sokka giggled in the background as she merely cackled and taunted back, “Nobody will ever believe you!”

The following sound of receding footsteps told you they were gone.

You let out a long groan and thumped your head on the wall behind you.

Zuko was silent for a bit before he decided to speak up. “Do I want to know what that means?” 

You sighed shakily, your heartbeat already starting to accelerate from your proximity to him. Fuck, already? “Um, it means Toph metalbent the keyhole shut.” You reached your arm in between you two to rub in between your eyebrows.

“So? You can metalbend too,” he added, clearly not getting what you were trying to tell him.

You stared blankly at his chest armor. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’m not a Toph-level metalbender yet. And even if I was, I don’t know what the keyhole looked like before. And even if I _did_ , and was able to fix it, the door would still be locked. Also, on that note, the lock mechanisms are completely messed up. So I can’t metalbend that either.”

“Sooo... we’re stuck?”

“Yeah.”

Zuko let out a frustrated sigh and you could faintly see him run a hand over his face as much as he could with the limited space between you two. Your eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark again, but the sliver of light that snuck in under the door helped too.

You puffed your cheeks and let out a breath as you slid down the wall to the floor amidst the few cleaning supplies and spare… everything. Zuko did the same.

“... So how'd they get you in here,” you asked once you were both settled.

Zuko hesitated like he was afraid to tell you. “Sokka... told me the closet was haunted. And that I needed to go inside and kill the ghost,” he sighed, defeated. “I guess I didn’t really think it through all the way.”

Of course, you snorted and burst out laughing. A reluctant smile crept up his face as he shook his head. “Are you going to be mad if I tell you you kind of deserve this?” you joked.

Zuko sighed, content written across his face. “No, I kind of do.”

\--

Word got around to the rest of the palace that the Fire Lord was… incapacitated. There wasn’t enough room for Zuko to knock the door down with any firebending forms, and the guards couldn’t firebend from their side because all that would do would blast the door on top of you. So over the next hour, several guards stopped by to try the lock with a new key they found, and every time, the key didn’t fit. 

You almost told them what was going on but decided against it. You knew you were not going to be the winner in this game Toph and them were playing. You weren’t even a _player_ , for Kyoshi’s sake. So you kept your mouth shut.

And the extra time with Zuko wasn’t bad either.

Zuko and you resorted to conversation in order to pass the time until Toph decided to let you out. Although you weren’t thrilled about the circumstances, the quiet of the closet was soothing, with only your voices to fill it. The isolation allowed you to notice things freely without the scrutiny of others. 

You saw the slight gestures his hands made while he spoke. You saw the way one loose strand of hair that had escaped his top-knot bounced slightly whenever he moved his head. And you saw the fatigue behind his eyes.

Your limbs tangled with each other’s as the two of you slouched on the floor while he spilled everything he had left to do for the gala that was now in three days.

“Honestly, I probably shouldn't be hanging out with you guys so much,” he joked at one point, but you could see how tired he was and how much he didn’t want to mean it.

You were quiet for a second before you told him one simple word: “Sleep.”

He blinked at you. “Uh, sleeping isn’t going to change the fact that I still have a pile of stuff to do as tall as the caldera.”

You rolled your eyes. “I _mean_ you look fucking exhausted right now. I don’t know when we’re getting out of here, but it probably won’t be soon. Take advantage of the break and take a nap.”

Zuko looked around the closet and took his time specifically paying attention to the brooms and mops and spare nails on the floor before making eye contact with you again.

You huffed and almost rolled your eyes again at his dramatics, but answered his unsaid question anyway. “Just use me as a pillow.”

And yes, it was kind of dark in the closet, but you’d be able to see his blush from a mountain away. 

You didn’t let yourself be flustered this time. It wasn’t exactly something friends did. The blush was expected. You held your ground and admired how adorable he was when the brooding front he usually put up was torn down unexpectedly.

Zuko composed himself a little and looked at you skeptically, probably trying to detect any hint of a joke, before finally shifting around to move closer to you.

You prayed that he couldn’t hear how loud your heart was beating because to you, it was _very_ loud. Your entire body thumped as your blood was arduously pumped along your veins and you practically buzzed with nervous anticipation as he situated himself.

Zuko moved amongst the brooms and boxes of nails until he was comfortably squished with you against your left side in the corner of the closet. 

It took him numerous attempts of trying to lay his head on your shoulder while trying to avoid poking you with his shoulder spikes until he figured out that he needed to take it off. 

You had to duck down slightly to avoid his arms while he shrugged out of the armor and placed it over your tangled legs. Then, he leaned back against your side and tentatively rested his head on your shoulder. 

With the prolonged contact, you could actually feel his body relaxing more by the minute, and when you felt his full dead weight around ten minutes later, you knew he’d fallen asleep.

This was the closest you had ever been to him. His body heat seeped through your clothes and warmed your skin, sending a giddy tingling sensation to travel through your nerves, passing through your stomach and shooting to your heart. 

You carefully tilted your head down to peek at him. The loose strand of hair hung over his eyes and his mouth drooped open just the tiniest bit. It was the most vulnerable he had ever been around you. And it was because of this that you felt a surge of protectiveness; a need to fend off anything that would ever cause him to look any less peaceful than he looked right now.

Zuko shifted in his sleep a bit. His right arm moved from where it had been pressed against yours and resting in his lap to tucked behind you--not quite wrapped around, but you were very obviously leaning against it. He adjusted his sitting position to account for his arm’s new placement and leaned even more onto you, nuzzling his cheek into your tunic. 

You were sweating and you didn't know if it was because the humidity was getting to you from outside; if Zuko’s body heat was upping your body temperature; if your heart was just pumping so hard that you were getting a work out from it, or a weird combination of all three.

It was probably all three.

Around another half an hour went by and you were considering leaning your head on top of Zuko’s to take a nap yourself when you heard the trademark crumpling of metal come from the lock.

The door flung open, letting an unholy amount of sunlight in. It was honestly a miracle Zuko didn't wake up. You cringed and lifted your right hand to shield your face from the light until your eyes could adjust.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

You were finally able to open your eyes enough to see Toph, Sokka, Iroh, Katara, Aang, and Ty Lee all crowded around the doorway glaring at you with enormous frowns on their faces.

So… this is who you were up against.

“Please tell me you guys kissed at least _once_ before he fell asleep,” Sokka complained, making sure to keep his voice at a whisper.

You returned his glare. “Okay, _one:_ hi, Aang. _Two_ : No! We did not _kiss_. And--” you started again before any of them could finish their frustrated groans-- “can I just take this moment to say: _I know what you’re doing!_ Seriously? A _closet?!_ That is the most _un_ original thing you could’ve come up with!”

None of them looked sorry or offended at what you said, but Toph was the only one who spoke up. “Are you sure nothing happened? Not even any... feelings talk?”

“ _Feelings t_ \--No! Nothing happened! He ranted to me about how he was stressed. I told him to take a nap, so he did! End of story!”

Katara’s frown deepened in disappointment while Iroh and Ty Lee just sighed, and Sokka spoke for them all when he mumbled, “This is going to be a lot harder than I thought.”

\--

You couldn’t believe they brought Aang into it as quickly as they did. You were convinced he and Sokka shared a brain cell, so you expected it to happen at some point, but… not _that_ fast. Every time you passed them in the hallway, Aang was with them, whispering and conniving like he had been there the entire time. Maybe he had. Could Aang astral project? You’d have to ask him later.

In order to cover their bases in between coming up with new ideas to trap you and Zuko together, they made sure to have you sit by each other at every meal you all attended. Which was a lot.

Really, you loved hanging out with Zuko and weirdly appreciated the time you got with him, but it was kind of exhausting trying to talk to him knowing that there were at least five other people listening in at all times and cataloging your every interaction in their brains. You loved them, really, but they were annoying the fuck out of you.

Which is exactly why you chose to avoid them for the entire day.

With Zuko being tired enough to have fully passed out on your shoulder in a supply closet in the middle of the day when firebenders were supposed to be strongest, you found yourself determined to help him with his gala preparations. Anything you could do to ease his stress while also getting away from the meddle-squad’s attention.

While sneaking around the palace on your way to find Zuko that morning, you passed the group congregated together on one side of the hall with one additional member you didn’t recognize. Her dark hair was done in three small buns and she wore a blank expression on her face that kind of reminded you of Zuko when you first met him. Even from far away, you could tell she was pretty. Aang and Toph spoke furiously with her, with Sokka and Iroh interjecting ever so often, while she stood passively staring at them. Whether she had tuned them out or was quietly absorbing the information she was being given, you couldn’t tell.

They hadn’t noticed you yet, though, so you tip-toed past them before they could.

You found Zuko in the main ballroom after searching fruitlessly through other areas of the palace. He stood in the middle of the room while someone spoke with him, gesturing to something in the room--the walls, it looked like. Obviously, they were probably referring to something _on_ the walls, but you couldn’t tell what from where you were. You _could_ tell, though, that Zuko was having a very hard time staying engaged in the conversation.

You crept into the room, not wanting to distract anyone from their jobs, but startled at the loud clanging of a tool on the ballroom floor to your right. 

A glance over showed you a woman struggling to reach for it--a small hammer--while trying to keep a tapestry corner in place above her. You dashed over and handed it to her, throwing her a small smile when she thanked you.

You turned back to look for Zuko and saw him turned away from his conversation, looking in your direction. His confused expression shifted into one of relief and he quickly excused himself before making his way over to you.

The ballroom was a special place in the palace, and the windows were the most elaborate thing about it. They were floodgates; open so that the sunlight would pour in at any moment and illuminate the entire room. It made the ballroom the brightest room in the palace, and you had never been more grateful for windows than at that moment.

 _Fuck,_ he looked otherworldly. Like he was born on another plane of existence too bright and beautiful for human eyes to comprehend and he carried a piece of that plane inside him while he walked this world. And the best part--he was looking at you.

You were staring. You needed to stop staring. You blinked and waved at him, finally ungluing yourself from your spot by the woman you’d just helped to meet him halfway. You really hoped she was too busy hanging her tapestry to see you drooling over the Fire Lord.

Because that's what he was, at the end of the day. It was pathetic how often you had to remind yourself.

Zuko slumped a bit when he reached you. “Please tell me you’re here because Sokka fell in a fountain somewhere and is in dire need of help. I think I’m starting to go nose-blind from how many flower arrangements I’ve sniffed,” he said, a pleading look on his face. 

“Sokka is alive and far away from any fountains, as far as I know,” he grimaced in disappointment, “but, I come offering service. What needs help?” you finished, glancing around the room.

“Oh, no, you don’t need to do that,” Zuko rushed, “I know I’ve been complaining a lot but I’ve got it, I promise. You shouldn’t spend one of your last days here doing errands for me.”

You rolled your eyes. “Zuko, you literally passed out on my shoulder yesterday in what I’m convinced is the darkest--and smallest--closet in this palace. And you’re a firebender! You literally draw power from the sun; you should not be sleepy during the day. Let me help,” you argued. He hadn’t said anything yet, but you could see his resolve crumbling. “Please,” you added.

Zuko looked at you pensively. He sighed. “Fine.” A beat passed. “Thank you,” he quietly added, not meeting your eyes.

He set you to work soon after that. All morning, you followed him around, acting like another limb to him. You were a second opinion; a second mouth; a second brain. And it turns out, you weren't that bad at event planning either.

You could tell how grateful he was for the extra help by how many times you caught him looking at you. You could even see the fatigue slowly leaving his eyes.

A midday break came around in the garden and you chose to sit by yourself away from the rest of the palace staff. You were kind of tired, and you didn't want his employees to get the wrong idea about you anyway.

Your alone time only lasted about ten minutes.

You heard footsteps crunching in the grass and turned around in confusion, knowing that it wasn't Zuko's footfall. You were met with the three-bunned girl you had seen with the meddle-squad earlier. You had to admit, she was even prettier up close. No--she was gorgeous. There wasn’t any other way to put it.

The three-bunned girl sat to your right and stared at the same bush you’d been staring at without saying a word.

You didn't really know what to say to that. So you just stared at the bush too.

“Has the bush said anything?” she suddenly deadpanned. 

You _really_ didn't know what to say to that. “Uh… no?”

“Then why are we staring at it?” she drawled, still not looking at you.

Your face scrunched up in confusion. “Well, _I'm_ looking at it because my energy for social interaction kind of ran out a while ago and I'm trying to recharge it. But I don't… know you.”

She huffed a laugh through her nose and responded, “I'm Mai.”

That didn’t really tell you anything. “Okay… cool,” you said. “I'm (Y/N).”

“Cool.”

You both went back to not speaking until Mai broke the silence. “So I hear you’re pretty good friends with Zuko,” she started.

There it was. You couldn’t help but start laughing to yourself at the lengths they were going to. This was, what, the third thing they were attempting? “Toph and Sokka sent you, didn’t they.”

“Yup.”

You sighed and considered this. “Do I want to know what they told you to do?”

Mai smirked. “If you’re as in love with him as they told me you are, then probably not.”

“Mother of badgermoles,” you cursed, scratching your eyebrow. 

Her smirk faded a little but stayed nevertheless. “I just have a few questions for you and then I’ll leave you alone.”

You turned to her, finally, and raised an eyebrow.

Mai met your stare, her face completely neutral now, and continued. “Have you ever started a fight with someone?”

Your mind flashed back to a year ago on the day you first met Zuko. “... Yes,” you admitted reluctantly, “ _but_ it was provoked and he deserved it. And I won.”

She raised an eyebrow, but you couldn’t tell if she was impressed or not. “Has Zuko ever fallen asleep on you before?”

“Yes.”

“On which side of his head?”

You thought back to the previous day. “His… unscarred side was on my shoulder.”

She assessed you for a moment before saying her final question. “Have you ever been in love?”

Your eyes wandered around at nothing while you thought of an answer. “Does currently count?”

“No.”

“Then no. Though I honestly don’t know why,” you said, gesturing to the empty space around you, “since I’m clearly so popular.”

Mai took the next few moments to analyze you and then snorted. She _snorted._ You didn’t have to be an expert on her to know that she did not do that often. And honestly, you knew it sounded shallow, but you had never seen a girl as pretty as her make any sound even remotely close to that.

With that, she stood up, brushed the dirt off her clothes, tossed at you, “It was nice to meet you. See you later, probably,” and walked out of the garden. 

The words “You too” weakly left your throat as your eyes followed her briefly before twisting back around to your bush.

That felt like a test. That clearly wasn’t what Toph and them told her to do. That was an interview if anything. Did you pass? Mai’s emotions were even harder to decipher than your own.

This small moment of contemplation was also interrupted, but this time by someone you were more familiar with. 

Zuko plopped down where Mai had been, eyes darting around and looking back to you every so often. You just stared at the side of his head since he wouldn’t look at you for some reason. “Are you okay?” you finally asked after some painful silence.

The panicked look in his eyes told you he was not. “Yeah, I just… ” he took a moment to try and figure out what he wanted to say next, “You… talked to Mai.”

“Yes, that was her name,” you replied, trying to hint at him to elaborate.

“Did she… say anything? About… me?” Zuko’s posture was even worse than normal. He was hunched over and began picking at the grass, peering up at you, nervously waiting for an answer. 

You stared at him some more, but not in the ogling way you usually did. When he started trying to pull the grass out of the ground, your hand stopped his. “Zuko,” you began, pulling his hand gently away from the grass and leaving it in his lap. His jaw tightened a little and he closed his eyes briefly before meeting yours uncertainly. “I mean this in the nicest way possible: Why are you so fucking skittish right now?” 

He frowned immediately. “I’m not skittish,” he defended, just like he had expected him to.

“Okay ‘not-skittish.’ Spill.”

Zuko huffed and frowned at the air in front of him instead of you. “Fine…” he paused, “Mai is my ex-girlfriend.”

Well. You didn’t have a comeback for that one. “No, she’s not,” you asserted.

Zuko whipped his head back to you, his brow furrowed. “Yes she is.”

Your brain wasn’t sending words to your mouth to respond with, so Zuko took charge. “I’ve known her since we were kids. We both had crushes on each other so we dated for a bit as teenagers and eventually decided we were better as friends.

Your brain was still trying to process it, but some words managed to work their way out this time. “But--she’s so… hot?”

Zuko’s face told you he was about to try and get you to elaborate on this, so you spoke before he could. “Sorry. I guess it’s just… never occurred to me before that you might actually have a love life. Unlike me,” you snorted, trying to cover up… whatever it was you were feeling. Mai was cool, from the five minutes you had spoken to her, but picturing them together just felt… wrong.

“What do you mean?” Zuko asked.

“Oh, I’ve never been in a relationship before. Like that, I mean,” you explained.

You had never seen Zuko look more shocked or surprised at anything the entire time you’d known him. His eyebrow flew up his forehead and even his scarred eye bugged out just the slightest bit. The sunlight danced in his irises and made the amber look like fire. All he did was gape at you. 

You rolled your eyes, a little embarrassed that he was making such a big deal out of it, and went to dismiss the topic, but he beat you to it.

“But--you--” and then it was his turn to be cut off. The rest of the palace staff began to move from their spots in the garden, rustling and chatter cutting the atmosphere of the moment you hadn’t even noticed was there until it was gone.

Zuko snapped out of whatever trance he was in but kept looking back at you out of the corner of his eye as you two stood up from the grass. He wanted to say something, clearly. And honestly, you didn’t know if it was better, or worse that you didn’t hear it.

It was probably better.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> new order is borne from chaos and holy fuck have you endured a whole bunch of chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final part!! i am very sorry this took so long lol but i was able to get this finished bc my uni was closed down for inclement weather for an entire week and i didn't have anything due or TO do since i was quarantined for covid exposure but ANYWAYS. with this finished, I now have absolutely no other ideas for other series, but I will be writing more oneshots and stuff. enjoy and thank you to all of those that supported this!!!!!!!!! youre amazing and beautiful and deserve the world :)))

You woke up that morning with a sinking feeling in your stomach and one word in your head: 

_Fuck._

It was the day of the gala-- your last day in the Fire Nation. Your last day with Zuko for who _knew_ how long. 

Was it going to be another year before you saw him again? Was this how it was always going to be? 

You were full of shit. Why were you asking yourself questions you’d already thought about? Did you think you were going to come to a new answer this time? You’d already kind of accepted you were never going to achieve the same level of respect the rest of his friends did. You weren’t a war hero like they were. And even _they_ got spoken down to sometimes. The hundred-year-war may have been over for a while, but there were still some asshole conservatives in the Fire Nation.

It hurt. You weren’t going to lie to yourself. But you liked to think that you were okay with just being his friend. It didn’t matter that you would never be on the same level as Toph or Aang or Sokka and it didn’t matter that you would definitely never be his partner in crime in more ways than one. You were his friend and you knew that he cared about you that way-- _only_ that way. As long as you knew that, you didn’t care how anyone looked at you or spoke about you behind your back. You would be there for him whenever he needed you. Even if the most you could do was write him a letter from half-way across the world.

But you weren’t over-exaggerating when you say a lot happened the day of the gala. Well, a lot compared to previous days, at least. As usual, you were not prepared for how things went.

It’s best to start off with this fact: Toph was a complicated person.

One second you could be thanking all the spirits that she existed, the next you were wishing death upon her. And most of the time you were mad at yourself for being happy with her. It was a tricky balance.

The day of the gala began with a moment of the second type.

You don’t know what exactly triggered her, but holy _shit_ were you glad Sokka was there.

It was breakfast. You were sat next to Zuko at the table like you had been at every meal the past week, but the two of you were a little off.

You were pretty sure Zuko was still hung up on whatever he wanted to say to you during the end of the lunch break the previous day, but he wouldn’t bring it up, or whatever it was that had him so quiet. And if he wouldn’t bring it up, then it meant he didn’t want to talk about it. So _you_ didn’t bring it up.

On top of being abnormally aware of every move he made (or, more than usual, anyway) because of this unnecessary tension, your brain was also convinced your metalbending wasn’t good enough for the gala, even though you _knew_ you had been preparing for this _forever_ and that your metalbending was fine.

So you sat, kneeled at the table eating your breakfast, your mind worrying about two separate topics at the same time of which neither needed to be worried about and engaged in battle with the annoyingly intrusive thoughts that had chosen the most _inconvenient_ time to show up. You really just wanted to try and spend whatever time you had left with Zuko before you left for home tomorrow, but it seemed that wasn’t going to happen.

Toph apparently didn’t like the silence. Not that it was that quiet. There was mild chatter going on amongst others, and Sokka was ranting to Suki, the Kyoshi Warrior he was dating who’d been able to join you for a bit in between guard duty, about something you weren’t paying attention to _._ It was just you and Zuko that were quiet.

Oh. That was probably why she did it, then.

Her chopsticks clattered in her bowl as she dropped them, gaining the attention of everyone at the table. Toph threw her hands up in the air, making it look like she was cursing the ceiling. “ _THAT’S IT!_ I can’t take this anymore--” she leapt up from her seated position and began gesturing wildly in Zuko’s direction, who looked very caught off guard by her outburst. “ _Sparky! ARE YOU BLIND?!”_ Toph dragged her hands down her cheeks for emphasis. “Or are you stupid? You _seriously_ can’t tell that (Y/N)’s in lo--” 

“--LAUNDRY!” Sokka was quick to interject, shooting up to his feet, which you were immensely thankful for because you were still frozen to the core in terror, your senses now working overtime to calculate Zuko’s reaction without having to look at him and risk seeming suspicious. “(Y/N) is innnnnn laundry. As in…” Sokka scrambled for a suitable excuse, “wearing dirty clothes from yesterday!” Sokka laughed nervously. “Sorry, (Y/N)! Your secret’s out. If you’ll just excuse us--” he finished by slapping his hand over Toph’s mouth before she could reiterate what she had been trying to say and dragged her off down the hall.

You knew you weren’t wearing dirty clothes in the slightest, but you looked down at yourself anyways just to have something to do other than stare in mortification at Toph’s now-empty spot.

Aang, who sat on the other side of you, leaned over and sniffed your shoulder. “Well, I think you smell fine,” he lightly commented, earning a few awkward chuckles from the rest of the table.

“Uh, thanks,” you lamely added.

Zuko cleared his throat to your left. “Um, I just remembered that I have to… meet with some people. I’ll see you guys later.” He sounded tired, but not from a lack of sleep. 

“Oh, but you haven’t finished--” 

But with a final _whoosh_ of his cape, he was gone, down the same hall that Toph and Sokka had escaped.

Mother of Faces, you were going to _kill_ Toph.

\--

Somehow, you ended up babysitting.

You were walking through the halls a little bit after breakfast had ended when some random palace worker you hadn’t seen before ran up to you with Druk in their hands thrust far away from them. They saw you and asked if you were (Y/N), to which you responded yes. Then, they shoved Druk towards you, said something about a family emergency, and ran away. 

At this point, you were betting any weird encounter with someone you hadn’t met before was a part of the meddle-squad’s crusade to set you and Zuko up. So many of their previous experiments had failed-- you even heard Sokka chewing someone out the other evening, who you assumed to be Mai after listening in on the rant a bit more, for “going off mission.” You’d laughed to yourself after imagining how bored she must’ve looked. With it being the Beifong Metalbending Academy’s last day in the Fire Nation, you figured there were going to be some last-ditch attempts that day.

So you stayed in the gardens and practiced a bit of metalbending to ease your conscience while also keeping an eye on Druk. You moved the same piece of metal around your body, trying to see how long you could keep in control before getting fatigued, but your brain was so scrambled, you only lasted a few minutes.

You let the slab of metal drop to the grass and walked to where Druk sat, attentively watching you from on top of a rock, and dropped into a squat in front of him, hanging your arms over your knees.

You frowned and stared into his eyes. Druk cocked his head to the side, maintaining eye contact.

You huffed a breath out your nose. “Your owner is very hard to read,” you told the dragon.

He blinked. A rumbling sound escaped from his chest that kind of sounded like a suppressed burp.

You rolled your eyes, more at yourself than anything. “ _You’re_ hard to read,” you muttered. What else were you expecting to get from a baby dragon?

Druk chirruped and scuttled forward a bit on his rock. His neck craned forward as he leaned in to sniff your face.

Your nose scrunched up in response but you didn’t bother leaning away. “What? I’m not ranting to you or anything. I already feel weird enough talking to you like this.”

Druk either didn’t care what you were saying, or couldn't understand you (which was probably the more plausible answer), and proceeded to leap from his rock without warning onto your shoulder.

You yelped and lost your balance, falling backward off the balls of your feet and abruptly on your butt. Druk’s insistent exploration of your ear caused you to scrunch up your neck from the ticklish sensation. You leaned back further, trying to get away from Druk (even though he was still on your shoulder) until you ended up laying in the grass.

Druk interpreted this as defeat and crawled on your face, choosing to place his butt directly over one of your eyes. He looked around the garden just as he had done before, except now, you were the rock. You closed the eye that you still could and sighed in resignation.

“(Y/N)?”

Your heart jolted in surprise and you shot up from the ground, accidentally flinging Druk off you and forcing him to haphazardly flap his wings to soften his landing on the grass. 

You rushed toward him, ignoring the voice for a second to see if he was ok. “Oh my Shu, I’m so sorry, Druk! Are you okay? You’re okay! Right?” 

Druk shook his head rapidly, ruffled his wings, and snorted. You sighed in relief and scratched his head as an apology. Chuckling from your right reminded you of what had caused your scare in the first place.

You turned towards it to see Zuko standing over you, a wry smile on his face. 

“You scared the living shit out of me. I didn’t even hear you come up! How long were you even standing there?” you fired incredulously.

He shrugged it off. “Not long. Sorry I scared you, though,” he apologized, still laughing a little.

You glared at him. “You don’t _sound_ sorry,” you mumbled.

He rolled his eyes, chuckling a bit more before the smile slipped off his face, like he remembered something that meant he couldn’t be smiling at you. Why couldn’t he smile at you?

“I, um, just came to get Druk,” he said. He wouldn’t meet your eyes.

“Oh, okay,” you replied. “Do you need any more help today? I’m not doing anything before the gala.”

“I, uh, I think I’m good.” He managed a small smile this time, but there was something off about it. “Thank you, though.” he amended. Zuko clicked his tongue, then, and patted his shoulder, leading Druk to hop and flap his way over to him. 

Something was wrong. You had to figure out what it was before he left. “Wait, Zuko--”

“I’ll see you later,” he tossed over his shoulder, already walking away with Druk on his shoulder and a hunched curve in his spine, and then he was gone again.

You sighed, clenched your jaw, and whispered to yourself what you wished he would let you say out loud. “I just want to be there for you.”

\--

You knew Zuko was avoiding you, but a part of you couldn’t really blame him for it once you saw the gala in person because holy _shit_ was there a lot of stuff. 

The entire party was strewn between the ballroom and the courtyard directly next to it, and even with the amount of helping you did that one day, you understood how it could take so long to plan this sort of thing.

There has to be a theme. (Though, honestly, you didn’t even think Zuko knew what the theme was). Decorate the palace based on that theme. Hire venue planners to _do_ the decorating; then they hire others to assist. There has to be time to figure out food. Make sure the food fits that theme. Find music entertainment. A lively band, but not too lively. But not completely dead either. Make sure there’s enough staff to manage guests. Make sure to pay the staff _super_ well after this mess. Make sure everyone is invited, but no one important is left out. Figure out this list early so that you give the invitees enough time to find appropriate attire. Find rooms for them to stay in and make sure the right rooms go to the right people so that no one is offended. And probably a million more things you weren’t aware of.

The sun was still out; it wouldn’t set for a couple of hours-- not until dinner was over. You guessed that was on purpose, given what nation you were in. There were lanterns and candles strewn around for when it eventually set, though. Something told you with the number of lighting fixtures they had set up, it wouldn’t even feel like night at all. Flyers hung on the strands in between the lanterns with dragons, fire lilies, and suns printed on-- actually, they looked embroidered. Well, there was another job to add to the “How to Organize a Gala” list. Their close proximity to the lanterns kind of worried you, but with the number of firebenders and waterbenders attending, you figured in the event of an accidental fire, it would get taken care of somehow.

Banquet tables were placed in both areas with enough space left for people to dance as well, though that probably wouldn’t take place until way after the sun had set into the night. Besides, the important people still had to make their way around to the other important people to let each other know they were important. And all of those people who were important wanted to get a chance to talk to the ultimate important person of the gala: Zuko. (You also wanted to talk to him, but likely not for the reasons they wanted to.)

Unfortunately, the important people also wanted to talk to the famous Toph Beifong, inventor of metalbending and founder of the Beifong Metalbending Academy, and her very own students. Which included you. 

As much as you would’ve liked to ignore all of them and just do your own thing, the whole reason you were invited to the gala was to represent the Academy, and that meant being open for questions to anyone who had one.

This wouldn’t last the entire time, of course, you would get your freedom eventually. All members of the Academy, dressed in casual green, sleeveless tunics and pants (that only looked fancy because of the decorative metal bands adorning your biceps, wrists, collarbones, backs, waistbands, and knees), were instructed to wear an extra crown looking metal band around their heads. When the crown was on, Academy members were open for questions and demonstrations. When off, only with the permission of Toph, members were free to roam the party as they pleased.

You were very excited to take the crown off. No matter how cool it looked.

But you had to get through the gala first.

Whether you would get through it without falling on your ass, well, that was up to your group of nemeses.

It was clear that the meddle-squad was getting desperate. You don’t even know how many times someone bumped into you while you maneuvered your way through the crowd of people, waiting for someone else to come up to you, but you could guarantee anytime you ran into someone and couldn’t find them afterward to apologize, it was someone you knew. 

You guessed their goal was to get you to bump into Zuko, or get you to bump into someone in order to make a scene and attract Zuko’s attention, but either way, it never worked. You barely knew where Zuko was yourself, and you doubt they did either.

You’ll admit, a part of you wanted to bump into him just so you’d be able to talk to him, but for the most part, you were just sick of getting tripped in the middle of conversations. You were _trying_ to do your job, and they were making it very hard.

Luckily they gave up on the tripping and shoving just before dinner, but it kind of looked like they tried to pull something then too. You couldn’t tell from where you were, but you saw the group scramble for seats when dinner was called to order, like they had when they wanted you to sit by Zuko during yoga, only they didn’t succeed this time. From among your place with the rest of the metalbenders, you could kind of make out a glare that promised violence on Zuko’s face as he looked at Sokka, so you assumed that was what put an end to that shenanigan.

Dinner was peaceful, and you hated it. You liked the people you were sitting by from the Academy well enough, but you’d gotten used to loud stories from Sokka and mocking laughter from Toph and Katara and teasing from Aang. You missed snickering with Zuko under your breath and coming up with snarky commentary to Sokka’s stories, stealing each other’s food when the other wasn’t looking, or just talking completely in your own world.

You missed Zuko. And you felt pathetic because of it. 

Why couldn’t things just be easy?

\--

You were roped into a conversation with a recently retired Fire Nation palace guard immediately after dinner was up. The sun was close to setting by now, casting everyone’s features in a golden pink glow, and Suki, who you hadn’t spoken a word to aside from being introduced, came up and interrupted in the most polite way you had ever seen, under the guise that she needed to borrow you. The retired guard must have known her from serving around the palace, because he didn’t put up any fight, merely wishing you a nice night and thanking you for taking the time to answer his questions. 

Suki smiled grimly at you when you turned to her and told you that Sokka had fallen in the turtleduck pond and she needed help finding first aid supplies.

You had to admit: she was good. You didn’t really suspect much until she turned and guided you into the palace halls. A sort of tingling tension formed in your shoulders and you halted. 

“Something wrong?” she asked once she noticed you weren’t following her anymore.

You pursed your lips into a firm line. “Can I ask where we’re going to look for first aid supplies?”

“Oh, I was just going to check in a few supply closets around here,” she explained, gesturing down the hall.

You eyed her with a healthy amount of reproach. “Is this search going to end with me locked in one ofthem again?”

Her innocent expression melted away as her lips curled up into an apologetic smirk. She crossed her arms and sunk her weight onto one of her legs, effectively changing her entire demeanor. Oh, she was _really_ good. “You said it, not me.”

You rolled your eyes. “Repeating tricks? I have to say, I actually expected better of them.”

She shrugged and began walking towards you, the two of you making your way back to the party. “They’re trying. Desperate times, desperate measures, right?”

A snort escaped your mouth at the irony of her words. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

\--

Mai was mad. You thought. It was hard to tell from far away, but judging from Zuko’s taken aback expression, Toph’s giddy smirk, the astonished faces of Katara, Suki, Sokka, Aang, Ty Lee, and the satisfaction on Iroh’s, she was at least doing something out of the norm for her.

Night had fallen, but as you had predicted, all the lanterns and candles made it difficult to tell, and all the easier to spot Mai across the outdoor dance floor with Toph at her side, speaking to Zuko and using more hand gestures than she normally did. But, then again, you had only spoken to her on one occasion before, in which she was in charge of the conversation.

You observed them while the woman who had approached you to ask _you_ about metalbending blabbered on about how her daughter was doing in her firebending training. She probably hadn’t even noticed you weren’t paying attention anymore. 

Mai must have felt your stare because she halted her spiel and turned her head in your direction. Then, she calmly waved.

You were already embarrassed to have been caught spying, but the wave threw you off even more. You knew for _sure_ that was out of character for her. 

You waved back awkwardly, glancing at Zuko, who was already looking at you before blushing and quickly averting his gaze. 

Mai went back to her scolding and you were forced to return to your conversation as the woman had noticed with your robotic wave that your mind was somewhere else.

She began lecturing you about manners then, and you couldn’t help but find it funny that Zuko was in just about the exact same situation as you. 

You wondered if he was thinking about you like you were of him. Now _that_ would be a parallel, wouldn’t it?

\--

“(Y/N)! You have a minute?”

You whipped around from observing a group of fire dancers carry out their performance to find Riku standing in front of you, a woman dressed in light weather water tribe clothing lingering behind him. 

You hadn’t spoken to him in a very long time. Ever since your fight a year ago, he tended to stay away from you, which didn't bother you because from what you could observe he was still a dick. Even in close quarters during the Academy’s visit to the Fire Nation you still avoided each other. And now he just… walked up to you?

“Uh, yeah,” you hesitantly responded because despite your stubborn attitude most of the time, you didn’t know how to say no to people.

“This is Nya, she’s a guest from the Northern Water Tribe,” Riku introduced. He seemed civil so far, but you were keeping your guard up just in case. “She came up to me for questions and asked for a small demonstration but… ” he looked around at the ground, the flyers, shoes; basically anywhere that wasn’t your eyes, “I told her you were the best person for that since you've always had better fine control than me,” he finally explained.

Of all things you expected to come from him, a compliment was definitely not it. A compliment on your skillset as a metalbender, nonetheless, not just a half-hearted jab at your appearance. Was that sincerity in his voice? 

But when he finally met your eyes, you could tell without a doubt that he was being genuine. 

You analyzed the cold stare he gave you and the acceptance behind it. The Riku you fought a year ago would never be caught dead doing anything like this, and yet he stood in front of you, doing exactly that. Not the best apology in history, but you supposed the effort called for a truce at best. Not forgiveness-- he still had some sexist tendencies that no doubt needed to be fixed-- but it was a start. 

You gave him a curt nod and turned towards the woman with a smile. “Nice to meet you. What were you interested in seeing?”

She went on to inquire about the different forms, eventually bringing herself to her question about the intricacies that came with your abilities. Riku stood to the side of the conversation, just watching. Not once did he interrupt you, and when it came time for you to slip off one of your metal bicep bands and demonstrate a few things, you would say he looked about as fascinated as Nya.

In the middle of moving your hands to manipulate the metal into your next planned shape, you felt someone else looking in on your lesson. A quick glance up allowed you to see Zuko completely ignoring whoever was talking to him across the courtyard, instead focused on you. 

He looked torn. Defeated. And regretful. No-- all that was just longing. But you were so happy he wasn’t giving you the random cold shoulder for that moment, that you didn’t care to think about why he was looking at you with longing. You were just happy he was looking.

A grin spread across your face as your eyes flicked up to his hair. Your hands quickly adjusted, changing direction and re-angling your fingers to bend a certain way until the lump of metal hovering in between resembled Zuko’s royal hairpiece. 

Nya gasped and laughed in astonishment, giving you a round of applause, but you only looked at Zuko. You brought your hands up higher so he could see from where he was and grinned even wider than before, proudly showing it off.

Something in his face changed. A smile overtook the longing and chased it away, leaving only a look of fondness as he huffed a laugh at your creation.

And if you’d looked a little longer, you probably would’ve seen the tiny bit of resolve that ebbed its way to the surface.

\--

The crown was no longer a crown.

With permission from Toph you were finally able to take it off and do whatever the fuck you wanted for the rest of the party, so, of course, you retreated to gardens where no one could bother you.

You’d liquified your Academy crown and started messing around with it, seeing how much your fine motor skills had actually improved. With a head, legs, and wispy hair, your little project was coming along bit by bit. Your mind was quiet and you didn’t think about anything else but the misshapen lump of metal in your hands.

And yeah you still needed to talk to Zuko, but he was off doing Fire Lord stuff so you didn't want to bother him. 

Which only meant when he showed up in the gardens too, it threw you off a bit.

You heard the footsteps in the grass behind you and looked to see who was disturbing your alone time, but were greeted with the one person you’d always make an exception for. You didn’t even register the apprehension that clouded his features.

Your eyebrows shot up your forehead and you quickly gathered your metal art project. “Zuko! Look--” you exclaimed and thrust your hands toward him where he stood just before you to reveal the tiny metal sculpture of Druk you had been working on.

The surprised look on his face shifted into an impressed smile the longer he took it in. “Wow, this is… actually really accurate. Nice job,” he complimented.

“Great! ‘Cause it's for you,” you stated.

Zuko’s eyes flew open at that. “What? No, I--”

You scoffed good-naturedly. “Zuko, it's a sculpture of _your_ dragon. Take it,” you encouraged.

Zuko was still floundering for something to say. “I-- what, so you’re just...giving this to me? Why?”

“Beeeecaaause I want to?” you responded, raising an eyebrow before sheepishly breaking the eye contact you held with him. “You seemed kind of weird today and I didn’t know if it was my fault or not but I wanted to make you feel better. And since you know I'm not really good with… ” your hands waved aimlessly between the two of you, one still holding the sculpture, “you know… well--” you clapped your hands together to hold the sculpture in both your palms and pushed it towards him again.

He was still reluctant, though. “But… you must’ve spent hours on this,” he argued.

You had, but that wasn’t really the point of the gesture, so you simply shrugged and said “Good things take time to make,” and hoped he didn’t understand the double meaning you realized too late you had put in that sentence. Like how good relationships take time to build but are always worth it in the end. _Oma,_ this man had turned you _way_ sappier than you wanted to be.

Zuko looked at you. Then continued to stare blankly at the tiny dragon in your hands. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking. You’d never been good with reading people, after all.

“I’m in love with you,” he blurted out.

You felt your heart stop for a full second before restarting again at a speed twice that of before. The sudden spike of adrenaline that rushed through your veins caused your hands to clench in a panic reflexively, ultimately squishing the tiny Druk into a metal lump. “Oh shit! I’m sorry! I am so sorry! I panicked! Uhhhh I can fix it I swear,” you rambled pulling the now formless ball of metal closer to you for inspection.

You could feel Zuko cringe even without looking at him. “You don’t have to… ” his hands made their way into your field of vision briefly as if to try and stop your hands from fussing over the crumpled gift before retreating back to his sides. You looked up at him, feeling a little shaky, and saw his wince turn into a look of defeat. 

He sighed. “I-- look, I just thought I should tell you since you're leaving soon. I’ve known I’ve loved you for a while now and I just thought you deserved to know for sure that at least one person in your life feels that way about you.” Your eyebrows scrunched together. “In-- you know-- the romantic way,” he corrected. “Well, I mean, I wasn’t exactly planning on telling you _now_ \--” he mumbled the next part-- “honestly I didn’t think I was ever planning on telling you-- BUT I guess it's out there… now.” You both saw and heard him swallow thickly. You didn’t think you had _ever_ seen him look this nervous.

“I, um,” he began again, “I know I was weird today and I want you to know you did nothing wrong. And I completely understand if its weird to be friends now since you're in love with someone else, but--”

You’d been following him well up until this, which worked to snap you out of your stupor. “Uhhhhhh hold on. Who said I was in love with someone else?” you questioned.

Zuko blinked. “Toph, this morning? She said-- well I guess now that I think about it she didn’t really _say--_ ”

“You just assumed she was talking about someone else with no actual evidence? You would make a shit detective,” you snorted, finally recovering from your earlier panic.

“I-- can you stop roasting me for one second and just tell me if you feel the same way or not?” he rushed out, exasperated at this point.

“Right, sorry. It’s my default.”

Zuko huffed a laugh through his nose but you could tell he was still anxious to get an answer. “I know. You don’t need to apologize.”

You smiled softly and observed him, wanting to remember exactly how perfect he looked in that moment. And you never thought it’d be so easy to say. 

“I love you, too.”

“Wait-- really?” he stammered. A spark of hope flickered in his eyes.

“Uh, yeah? I honestly can’t believe you didn’t know already.”

“I can’t believe _you_ didn’t know. I’m the worst liar ever!”

You both looked at each other for a moment before bursting out into laughter. 

“We’re idiots,” you managed through your fit of giggles.

Zuko let out another laugh and met your eyes again. Oddly enough, he was looking at you the same way he had multiple times before, but with the new information you had acquired just moments ago, you could now put a name to that look. And you now knew what heart-eyes looked like in real life.

He took a small step forward and half-raised a hand. “Can I--”

“Yes.”

He raised his eyebrow, a challenging smile forming at the corner of his mouth. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

You shrugged. “Maybe not, but I trust you.”

He shook his head, the grin coming in at full force, and kissed you. 

As far as first kisses go, it probably wasn’t the best. You were both smiling too much to really get anywhere, but to you it was perfect.

“Stop smiling,” he muttered, pulling the slightest bit away for a second.

“You’re smiling too!” you retorted. 

He rolled his eyes and leaned in again, but you stopped him with a hand to his chest.

“Wait, what does roasting mean by the way.”

Zuko halted his motions just millimeters away from your face and sighed, but you knew he wasn’t actually annoyed with you. “You want me to answer that right now?”

“I’m sorry! That part confused me. I thought that was just cooking something slowly,” you defended.

He sighed again, still speaking by your mouth. “It’s a figure of speech in the Fire Nation for when someone is unnecessarily making fun of someone else,” he explained.

You scoffed. “Oh, my roasting was _absolutely_ necessary, then.”

Zuko let out an annoyed groan and thumped his head on your shoulder, wrapping his arms securely around your waist in a hug. “Asshole,” he mumbled affectionately into your shoulder.

“Well, it’s about _FUCKING time!”_ Zuko’s head shot up from your shoulder while your head snapped over to where Toph screamed from the entrance to the gardens. _“_ SOKKA! WE DID IT!”

Sokka skidded around the hallway corner to Toph’s side. “Really?!” he yelled, eyes glued on you and Zuko still hugging.

You pulled away from Zuko, your closest hand dropping down to hold his while you got ready to tell them off. Your free hand came up to point accusingly at them. “Oh no. NO no. You do _NOT_ get credit for this!” you established, your arm gesturing furiously at them. “This was not you! This was him!” your arm whipped around to point to Zuko. “Now go away! I don’t want to see you right now! Your presence is not required at the moment! Bye!”

Judging from Toph and Sokka’s impish grins as they skittered off to probably tell everyone about the new development, they didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything you had just told them.

You sighed and turned back to see Zuko observing you with amusement written all over his face. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to your temple, quietly but confidently muttering, “I don’t want to know.”

And that was good enough for you.


End file.
